As editor of the two-part Volume V on photosynthesis in RUHLAND'S Encyclopedia, the forerunner of this series published in 1960, I have been approached by the editors of the present volume to provide a short preface.
Recent physiologic investigations have shown that the deep cerebellar nuclei may play an important role in the initiation and monitoring of skilled move- ments.
The vertebrate eye has been, and continues to be, an object of interest and of inquiry for biologists, physicists, chemists, psychologists, and others.
The early development of the mammalian embryo belongs to a period which, for the student, provides the particularly deep fascination connected with the processes of germination of the fIrst tender buds of life.
The problems associated with the movement of water and solutes throughout the plant body have intrigued students of plants since Malpighi's conclusions in 1675 and 1679 that nutrient sap flows upward and downward in stems through vessels in both wood and bark.
One of the points clearly stressed in the beginning of this book is that the essential feature of any dynamic system is change and that, where there is change, there may also be growth and evolution.
In review, the amount of information available on the morphological and func- tional properties of the frog nervous system is very extensive indeed and in certain areas is the only available source of information in vertebrates.
Plant pathology embraces all aspects of biological and scientific activity which are concerned with understanding the complex phenomena of diseases in plants.
Animals are important components of any ecosystem and it is impossible to describe structure and funCtioning of the Fennoscandian tundra ecosystems without including this part of the system.
The public's serious concern about the uncertainties and dangers of the conse- quences of human activities on environmental quality demands policies to control the situation and to prevent its deterioration.
A book previously published within the framework of the Ecological Studies Series, entitled "e;Physical Aspects of Soil Water and Salts in Ecosystems"e; included awidespectrum of research papers devoted to new findings in the field of soil-plant-water relationships.
At the end of the last century and the beginning of this century, the prob- lems of immunity in lower vertebrates and the influence of environmental temperature attracted attention for the first time (ERNST, 1890; WIDAL and SICARD, 1897; METCHNIKOFF, 1901).
The papers collected in this book were given and discussed at the symposium on "e;Soil water physics and technology"e;, which was held in Rehovot, Israel, from August 19th-September 4th, 1971.
No other disjunct pieces of land present such striking similarities as the widely sepa- 1 rated regions with a mediterranean type of climate, that is, the territories fringing the Mediterranean Sea, California, Central Chile and the southernmost strips of South Mrica and Australia.
It is now generally accepted for a variety of reasons - morphological as well as physiologica- that the visual systems of arthropods provide a suitable model for the study of information proces- sing in neuronal networks.
This section will consider the structure and function of muscle receptors, as well as the central nervous system mechanisms with which they are concerned.
The originality of this volume is to reveal to the reader the fascination of some unfamiliar sensory organs that are sometimes ignored and often misunderstood.
In 1971 I published a review of ichnology other concentrating only on traces made (Houston AAPG: SEPM Trace Fossil Field by a certain group of organisms, regardless Trip Guidebook) that I thought could be of their setting.
Prominent progress in molecular biology was only made when it became possible to separate functionally distinct molecules by taking advantage of their biophysical properties.
