ABSTRACT
Most plants, for most of their lives, are healthy! This is fortunate, because healthy plants are the foundation of the earth’s terrestrial ecosystems. They are the source of the nutrients that sustain the interdependent organisms that together make up a stable ecosystem. Plants capture energy from the sun, and this energy provides food for large and small herbivores, the carnivores that eat the herbivores, and the scavengers that degrade the remains, including those of the plants themselves. Plants also provide energy for a variety of microorganisms that live in and on them, some of which are parasites that cause disease.
