Quark mass dependence of baryon properties: Foundations and applications

I discuss the quark mass dependence of various baryon properties derived from chiral perturbation theory. Such representations can eventually be used as chiral extrapolation functions when lattice data at sufficiently small quark masses become available. The quark mass dependence is encoded in loop and contact term contributions, the latter given in terms of low-energy constants. I stress the importance of utilizing phenomenological input to constrain a certain class of low-energy constants and discuss the ensuing theoretical uncertainty for various baryon observables. Examples are the nucleon and the baryon octet masses, the nucleon isovector anomalous magnetic moment and the axial-vector coupling of the nucleon. I stress the role of resonance decoupling and present first results for the delta mass based on an effective field theory in which the nucleon-delta mass splitting is counted as a small parameter. I also discuss breifly the pion mass dependence of the nuclear force as derived from chiral nuclear effective field theory.