Soft Matter in Plants: From Biophysics to Biomimetics

Plants offer some of the most elegant applications of soft matter principles in Nature. Understanding the interplay between chemistry, physics, biology, and fluid mechanics is critical to forecast plant behaviour, which is necessary for agriculture and disease management. It also provides inspiration for novel engineering applications. Starting with fundamental concepts around plant biology, physics of soft matter and viscous fluids, readers of this book will be given a cross-disciplinary and expert grounding to the field. The book covers local scale aspects, such as cell and tissue mechanics, to regional scale matters covering movement, tropism, roots, through to global scale topics around fluid transport. Focussed chapters on water stress, networks, and biomimetics provide the user with a concise and complete introduction.

Edited by internationally recognised leading experts in this field with contributions from key investigators worldwide, this book is the first introduction to the subject matter and will be suitable for both physical and life science readers.