Plants and Their Ecosystems

When we think about plants, dynamic is not usually a word that comes to mind. Plants are part of the landscape. Unless you are a gardener, you might never give the trees and smaller plants around you a second thought. The fact that plants are, well, planted in place has some evolutionary implications, though. If you are a life form that cannot move (other than by growing vertically or spreading horizontally), and the environment changes, your offspring have the options of adapting or dying out. This means that plants have developed a wild array of forms to follow their ecological niche function.