Course Contents

A. Plant Physiology 1. Water relations (water potential, osmotic potential, pressure potential, matric potential). Absorption and translocation of water. Stomatal regulation. 2. Mineral nutrition: Soil as a source of minerals. Passive and active transport of nutrients. 3. Photosynthesis: Introduction, Oxygenic and non-oxygenic photosynthesis Mechanism: light reactions (electron transport and photophosphorylation) and dark reactions(Calvin cycle). Differences between C3 and C4 plants. 4. Respiration: Definition and respiratory substrates. Mechanism- Glycolysis, Krebs cycle. Electron transport and oxidative phosphorylation. Anaerobic respiration. Energy balance in aerobic and anaerobic respiration. 5. Growth: Definition; role of auxins, gibberellins, cytokinins, abscisic acid and ethylene in controlling growth. 6. Photoperiodism: Definition, Classification of plants based on photoperiodic response, Role of phytochromes, and hormones . 7. Dormancy: Definition and causes of seed and bud dormancy; methods of breaking seed dormancy. 8. Plant Movements: Classification. Tropic movements-phototropism, gravitropism, Nastic movements. b) Ecology 1. Introduction, aims and applications of ecology. 2. Soil: Physical and Chemical properties of soil (soil formation, texture. pH,EC, organism and organic matter etc)and their relationships to plants. 3. Light ,water and wind as an ecological factors. 6. Population and . Community Ecology. A brief description 7. Plant succession. Primary and secondary succession. Kinds and example from hydrac and xerac. 8. Ecosystem Ecology a. Definition, types and components of ecosystem. b. Food chain and Food web. c. Biogeochemical cycles d. water logging and salinity ,Causes, effects and control of water logging and salinity respect to Pakistan e. Brief concept of pollution types and effects Practicals A. Plant Physiology 1. Preparation of solutions of specific normality of acids/bases, salts, sugars, molal and molar solutions and their standardization. 2. Measurement of leaf water potential by the dye method. 3. Determination of the effects of environmental factors on the rate of transpiration of a leafy shoot by means of a porometer/by cobalt chloride paper method. 4. Extraction of chlorophyll from the leaves and separation of component pigments on a paper chromatogram. Study of absorption spectra using spectrophotometer. 5. Extraction of amylase from germinating wheat seeds and study of its effect on starch breakdown. 6. Measurement of carbon dioxide evolution during respiration of germinating seeds by the titration method. 7. Effect of light and temperature on seed germination. b) Ecology 8. Determination of physical and chemical characteristics of soil. 9. Measurements of various population variables 10. Measurement of vegetation by Quadrat and line intercept methods.