UWA Handbook 2025

Unit Overview

Description

Plants have literally shaped the Earth and its environment, priming the great oxygenation event several billion years ago which enabled the evolution of all aerobic life. We are sustained by the bountiful plant life around us, but it is their capacity to adapt and acclimate to wide conditions that make studying plants so interesting. This plasticity driven by the plant genome underpins native ecosystems, enables restoration of toxic or nutrient-poor land, as well as the use of plants in managed systems including agriculture. Plants also have a wide range of relationships with other organisms, from food or host to symbiont or parasite. Grain/seed production sustains the energy requirements of the growing human population, as well as being one of the major international commodities traded around the world. Plant metabolic pathways facilitate acclimation to a changing environment and produce compounds (e.g. vitamins) essential for human and animal health. This unit takes students through the parts (organs, tissues and cells) that make up plants, and considers the relationships and influences of plants on the environment and other organisms. Students will gain practical skills in evaluating plant function in the context of many disciplines. Topics include the structure–physiology relationships at the cell, tissue, organ, plant and community levels; plant growth and development; transfer processes in the soil–plant–atmosphere continuum; energy capture and metabolism; water relations; nutrient acquisition; and acclimations to the environment.

Credit

6 points

Offering
(see Timetable)

Availability	Location	Mode
Semester 2	UWA (Perth)	Face to face
Semester 2	Albany	Face to face

Details for undergraduate courses

• Level 2 core unit in the Botany; Agricultural Science; Agricultural Science and Technology; Molecular Life Sciences; Environmental Science and Ecology; Plant Biology major sequences
• Level 2 elective

Outcomes

Students are able to (1) describe the structure of plants and how each part functions and contributes to the whole; (2) develop skills in plant anatomy and measure aspects of plant physiology including net photosynthesis, chlorophyll content, water relations, water transport, ion transport, radiation interception, and plant growth and development; (3) demonstrate skills in quantitative analyses, critical thinking to evaluate data sets and to communicate findings.; and (4) demonstrate an understanding of several foundation theories in plant physiology..

Assessment

Indicative assessments in this unit are as follows: (1) continuous assessment corresponding to the practical sessions (45 per cent) and (2) end-of-semester two-hour examination (55 per cent). Further information is available in the unit outline.

To pass this unit, a student must: (a) achieve an overall mark of 50 per cent or higher for the unit; and (b) achieve the requisite requirements(s) or a mark of 50 per cent or greater, whichever is higher and specified in the unit outline, for the end-of-semester two-hour examination (55 per cent) component.

Student may be offered supplementary assessment in this unit if they meet the eligibility criteria.

Unit Coordinator(s)

Dr Kosala Ranathunge and Dr Judith Lichtenzveig

Unit rules

Prerequisites

Successful completion of

any one Unit(s)
or BIOL1130 Frontiers in Biology
or BIOL1131 Plant and Animal Biology
or SCIE1106 Molecular Biology of the Cell
or SCIX1106 Molecular Biology of the Cell )

Contact hours

lectures: 2 hours per week
practical work: 6 x 3-hour sessions. Lectures are delivered as a combination of online-only, live (and recorded) and live facilitation.

Recommended
reading

Atwell, B. J. et al. Plants in Action: Adaptation in Nature, Performance in Cultivation: MacMillan Education 1999

Lambers, H. et al. Plant Physiological Ecology: Springer Verlag 2008

Taiz, L. and Zeiger, E. Plant Physiology: Sinauer Associates Inc. 2002