Plant Ecology: Why Are Plants Important?

What role do plants play in moderating temperature, mitigating air pollution, stormwater management, and providing food, medicine, and building materials? How do plants interact with each other? How do plants support the animal species with which we coexist, and what benefit do animals provide to plants in return? Learn about the many roles that plants play in our lives.

Mary Anne Borge is a naturalist, photographer, author and educator. A naturalist at Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve since 2006, she is a Pennsylvania Master Naturalist and the associate editor of Butterfly Gardener magazine. She is the team leader for Lambertville Goes Wild, a volunteer group whose efforts successfully led to the National Wildlife Federation’s certification of Lambertville, N.J., as a community wildlife habitat. At her blog, the-natural-web.org, Mary Anne writes about and, with her photography, illustrates the importance of native plants to all life on Earth.