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• This paper presents an architectural model of wheat (Triticum aestivum), designed to explain effects of light conditions at the individual leaf level on tillering kinetics. Various model variables, including blade length and curvature, were parameterized for spring wheat, and compared with winter wheat and other Gramineae species.• The architectural model enables simulation of plant properties at the level of individual organs. Parameterization was based on data derived from an outdoor experiment with spring wheat cv. Minaret.• Final organ dimensions of tillers could be modelled using the concept of relative phytomer numbers. Various variables in spring wheat showed marked similarities to winter wheat and other species, suggesting possibilities for a general Gramineae architectural model.• Our descriptive model is suitable for our objective: investigating light effects on tiller behaviour. However, we plan to replace the descriptive modelling solutions by physiological, mechanistic solutions, starting with the localized production and partitioning of assimilates as affected by abiotic growth factors.New Phytologist(2005)doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2005.01337.x© New Phytologist(2005) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The long period covered by this paper probably saw the most drastic changes wrought by man on the plant cover of these islands in the whole of postglacial history. Much of our information about vegetation changes comes from those parts of the country where peats and mires are abundant, which leaves those areas which were the cradle of successive cultural groups largely unrepresented. Sources of environmental evidence are now emerging even from this unpromising background, an important element amongst which are man's own works. The evidence of changes wrought by man may come from non-botanical as well as botanical material. Pollen, charcoal, phytoliths, seeds, mosses, and other macroscopic plant remains may be extracted, but indirect evidence may also be obtained from land snails, insects, bones (including small vertebrates), as well as from preserved soils and land surfaces. In the various environments considered a trend from forest through clearance to pastoral or arable agriculture can usually be demonstrated. These changes may ultimately result in site deterioration on a large scale, the nature of which will depend upon the ecological conditions and the practices at work. In extreme cases peat may form or soil erosion take place. On base-poor soils, soil acidification may become so intense that the land is no longer usable for traditional agriculture and is allowed to degenerate to moorland or heath. In early historic times much degraded land came into use again for hill-grazing, a process which further depauperated both the flora and the soils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]