In the spring of 1969 a small meeting was convened at the CSIRO Riverina
Laboratory, Deniliquin, New South Wales, to discuss the biology of the
genus Atriplex, a group of plants considered by those who attended to be
of profound importance both in relation to range management in the
region and as a tool in physiological research. The brief report of this
meeting (Jones, 1970) now serves as a marker for the subsequent
remarkable increase in research on this genus, and served then to
interest the editors of the Ecological Studies Series in the present
volume. This was an exciting time in plant physiology, particularly in
the areas of ion absorption and photosynthesis, and unknowingly several
laboratories were engaged in parallel studies of these processes using
the genus Atriplex. It was also a time at which it seemed that numerical
methods in plant ecology could be used to delineate significant
processes in arid shrubland ecosystems. Nevertheless, to presume to
illustrate and integrate plant physiology and ecology using examples
from a single genus was to presume much. The deficiencies which became
increasingly apparent during the preparation of the present book were
responsible for much new research described in these pages.