Topic description / abstract:

We use many concepts in Plant Stress Physiology area, that deals with very complex phenomena and is in close interaction with other areas like: Molecular Biology, Genetics, Epigenetics, Ecology, Agricultural Engineering and Climate Science. Several plant scientists have already pointed out a need for a clarification of the concepts in this area. Although their analyses were very important contributions to the field; I argue those papers were missing a major ground. So, in this work I am doing this analysis through process metaphysics (following Dupré 2012). I argue the ontology of the encounter between the organism and the stressor is the key in plant stress physiology research and the constituent processes of the encounter, which is of course a process too, cause the plant stress responses –the phenome– to the stressor. The encounter is constituted from (1) the individual plant and (2) its environment (including the stressor). Process thinking is everywhere in plant stress physiology research. In this talk, I am giving examples on how we can easily trace this processual character through descriptions, measurement methods and experiment designs.

Biographical note:

Özlem Yilmaz holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and a Master’s degree from the Center of Environmental Sciences as well as a Master´s in Biology Education. She finished her PhD in Biology in 2011 in Ege University, İzmir; during her PhD she studied at three different universities (in Ege, Sydney and Sabancı Universities), all in different but closely related areas in Plant Science. After completing her PhD, she worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the Plant Physiology Lab of Sabancı University (2013-2016) and as a post-doctoral researcher in the Humanities and Social Sciences Department of İstanbul Technical University (2017-2018). In addition to these since 2012, she has been working on a PhD in Philosophy in Ege University and was recently awarded a KLI Writing-Up fellowship to complete her PhD in the Philosophy of Biology.