Question

What are the three ecological groups of plants?

Answer 1

The three main ecological groups of plants are

1. Hydrophytes

2. Mesophytes

3. Xerophytes

• Hydrophytes: A plant that grows wholly or partly submerged in water. Because they have less need to conserve water, hydrophytes often have a reduced cuticle and fewer stomata than other plants. Floating leaves have stomata only on their upper surfaces, and underwater leaves generally have no stomata at all.
• Mesophytes: These are terrestrial plants that are neither adapted to particularly dry nor particularly wet environments. An example of a mesophytic habitat would be a rural temperate meadow. Mesophytes prefer soil and air of moderate humidity and avoid soil with standing water or containing a great abundance of salts. They make up the largest ecological group of terrestrial plants and usually grow under moderate to hot and humid climatic regions.
• Xerophytes: A plant that is adapted to an arid environment. Many xerophytes have specialized tissues (usually nonphotosynthetic parenchyma cells) for storing water, as in the stems of cacti and the leaves of succulents. Others have thin, narrow leaves, or even spines, for minimizing water loss.