Author(s): George M. Briggs
Inanimate Life is an open textbook covering a very traditional biological topic, botany, in a non-traditional way. Rather than a phylogenetic approach, going group by group, the book considers what defines organisms and examines four general areas of their biology: structure (size, shape, composition and how it comes to be); reproduction (including sex when present); energy and material needs, acquisition and manipulations; and finally their interactions with conditions and with other organisms including agricultural interactions between plants and people. Although much of the text is devoted to vascular plants, the book comparatively considers ‘EBA = everything but animals’ (hence the title): plants, photosynthetic organisms that are not plants (‘algae’, as well as some bacteria and archaebacteria), fungi, and ‘fungal-like’ organisms. The book includes brief ‘fact sheets’ of fifty-nine organisms/groups that biologists should be aware of, ranging from the very familiar (corn, yeast, pines) to the unfamiliar (cryptophytes, diatoms, late-blight of potato). These groups reflect the diversity of inanimate life.
This updated edition was published in July 2022 and includes corrections, revisions, additional figures, and fact-sheets for several more groups.
Inanimate Life (Updated 2022)
PDF 30MB
Chapter 2: Taxonomy and Phylogeny
Chapter 4: Organism form: composition, size, and shape
Chapter 5: Cellular Structure in Inanimate Life
Chapter 6: Organ, Tissue, and Cellular Structure of Plants
Chapter 7: Producing Form: Development
Chapter 8: Vascular plant anatomy: primary growth
Chapter 10: Vascular Plant Form
Chapter 11: Reproduction and sex
Chapter 12: Fungal sex and fungal groups
Chapter 13: Sex and reproduction in non-seed plants
Chapter 14: The Development of Seeds
Chapter 15: Sex and Reproduction in Seed Plants
Chapter 16: Reproduction: development and physiology
Chapter 17: Sex, evolution, and the biological species concept
Chapter 18: Matter, Energy and Organisms
Chapter 19: Cellular Respiration
Chapter 21: Metabolic diversity
Chapter 22: Nutrition and nutrients
Chapter 24: Material movement and diffusion’s multiple roles in plant biology
Chapter 25: Plant growth—patterns, limitations and models
Chapter 26: Interactions Involving Conditions
Chapter 27: Biotic Interactions
Chapter 29: Weeds and weed control