Nitrogen is an essential element for plant growth. During the green revolution nitrogenfertilisation was responsible for spectacular yield increases. At present yield is balanced with commitments towards the environment and sustainable agriculture. For agro-biotechnology comprehensive knowledge of plant functioning is needed. Yield improvement and accumulation of essential nitrogen compounds is relying on selection and gene technologies.

Research on the uptake, acquisition and assimilation of nitrogen, as well as the synthesis and storage of reserve and defence N-compounds, therefore, is essential. The third volume in the Plant Ecophysiology series integrates functional and molecular physiology with ecophysiological and sustainable agricultural approaches to get a better understanding of the regulation and the impact of environmental and stress signals on nitrogen acquisition and assimilation. The book is of interest for advanced students and junior researchers and supplies comprehensive information for scientists working in the field of nitrogen metabolism and readers interested in sustainable development.

The studies presented in this volume are meant to The reason why we know relatively little about close some gaps in our knowledge of leaf anatomy inner leaf structure of trees from tropical humid of trees in tropical humid forests. Although xero forests is that the leaf anatomy of only a few species morphy of the foliage in tropical humid forests has or genera or - at the most - of an entire family has been much discussed, the statements have generally been studied in detail up to the present. Most of been based on sporadic anatomical studies of part i these studies are, therefore, of taxonomic interest. cular species or genera, a complete area of the size They cannot be included in this study because they of 155. 5 ha has certainly never been considered. do not supply the same information or amount of The present studies analyse an entire inventory of a data presented here. Anatomical studies are very time consuiming because the material first has to be given region in which the number of species and the number of individuals is very well known. This fact prepared and cut before observation can begin. In allows the elaboration of many ecological aspects, vestigation of about 50 characteristics in 230 species which was the main intention of the author."

Learn what it takes to create and implement a truly successful seed policy!This unique book brings together international experts on seed policy and law. While other books approach the subject from the perspective of seed industry development and privatization, Seed Policy, Legislation, and Law makes clear that a successful national seed policy must be based on a thorough analysis of connected issues such as biodiversity and rural development. In addition to giving you an essential overview of seed regulatory reform, this book will also bring you up to date on recent developments in the field, such as intellectual property and the biosafety of GMOs.Seed Policy, Legislation, and Law examines: quality control issues in developing countries case studies from Turkey, Uganda, and Bangladesh property rights for plant varieties the regulation of genetically modified seeds in emerging economies agro-biodiversity as it relates to seed policy why a farmer seed system is essential in a national seed sector the impact of the transition from central seed sector planning to a free market how international seed associations can impact policy development new technological developments like GURTs and appropriate policy responses

The world production of citrus fruit has risen enormously in the last few decades, leaping from forty-five million tons a year in the early 1970's to eighty-five million in the season of 1996-1997. More than thirty per cent of these fruits go into industrial production in which essential oils and juice are the principal products. The main applications of essential oils are as flavourings for alcohol, soft drinks, food, pharmaceutical products and as fragrances for cosmetics and beauty products. Today, the potential applications of these essential oils are growing wider because they are environmentally 'safer' than the petrochemical products they can sometimes replace.
This book offers comprehensive coverage on all aspects of the botany, cultivation, processing industry, chemistry and uses of Citrus and its oils. Anyone involved in food sciences, pharmaceutical sciences, cosmetics, pharmacy and plant sciences will no doubt find this volume to be of great value and interest.

eBook available with sample pages: 020321661X

The genus Thymus consists of about 350 species of perennial, aromatic herbs and subshrubs native to Europe and North Africa. Various types of thyme are used all over the globe as condiments, ornamentals and sources of essential oil. Thyme oil (distilled from its leaves) is among the world's top ten essential oils, displaying antibacterial, antimycotic, antioxidative, food preservative and mammalian age-delaying properties. Because of the wide variety of its applications, the demand for thyme oil is growing; hence thyme commands an important place in an expanding world market. Commercial supply of thyme originates mainly from European countries, but recently this increased demand has lead to new winter-hardy, high yield cultivars being developed for commercial cultivation in Canada and North America.
This comprehensive volume covers all aspects of the biology, cultivation, pharmacology, chemistry and industrial processing of the genus Thymus. It is the most up to date overview of current knowledge in thyme use, and will be an invaluable reference source to those interested in medicinal plants, natural products, pharmacy, pharmacognosy and agronomy.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203216857

This book is a comprehensive review of the genera of Gentianaceae, a family of flowering plants, found in tropical East Africa. It presents information on their character, occurrence, habitat, phenotypic variations and distribution of each of the species under these genera.

Marijuana is the prototypical cannabinoid, and is one of the most widely used drugs in the world. Cannabinoids are molecules found naturally in the human body and brain as well as in cannabis.
This book provides an extensive reference on the biology of marijuana and the role of molecular techniques in elucidating neuropharmacological aspects of cannabinoid receptors and the endogenous compounds that act upon them. Contributions from experts from around the world describe the interaction of cannabinoids and endocannabinoids on a wide range of biological functions including movement, memory and learning, pain, emotions, endocrine functions and many more. The Biology of Marijuana will be of interest to all scientists and clinicians interested in the biological effects and pharmacology of this drug.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203219139

The first premise of this book is that farmers need access to options for improving their situation. In agricultural terms, these options might be manage ment alternatives or different crops to grow, that can stabilize or increase household income, that reduce soil degradation and dependence on off-farm inputs, or that exploit local market opportunities. Farmers need a facilitating environment, in which affordable credit is available if needed, in which policies are conducive to judicious management of natural resources, and in which costs and prices of production are stable. Another key ingredient of this facilitating environment is information: an understanding of which options are viable, how these operate at the farm level, and what their impact may be on the things that farmers perceive as being important. The second premise is that systems analysis and simulation have an impor tant role to play in fostering this understanding of options, traditional field experimentation being time-consuming and costly. This book summarizes the activities of the International Benchmark Sites Network for Agrotechnology Transfer (IBSNAT) project, an international initiative funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). IBSNAT was an attempt to demonstrate the effectiveness of understanding options through systems analysis and simulation for the ultimate benefit of farm households in the tropics and subtropics. The idea for the book was first suggested at one of the last IBSNAT group meetings held at the University of Hawaii in 1993."

With contributions from nearly 130 internationally renowned experts in the field, this reference details advances in transgenic plant construction and explores the social, political, and legal aspects of genetic plant manipulation. It provides analyzes of the history, genetics, physiology, and cultivation of over 30 species of transgenic seeds, fruits, and vegetables. Stressing the impact of genetic engineering strategies on the nutritional and functional benefit of foods as well as on consumer health and the global market economy, the book covers methods of gene marking, transferring, and tagging public perceptions to the selective breeding, hybridization, and recombinant DNA manipulation of food.

Originally published in 1974, Arctic and Alpine Environments examines, the relatively simple ecosystems of arctic and alpine lands that still occupy extensive areas little disturbed by modern technology. The book argues that there is a necessity for carefully controlled development of the resources of these regions and suggests that there is a risk of irreversible disturbance without full understanding of these regions. This book provides a detailed documentation of cold-stressed arctic and alpine terrestrial environments and systematically deals with the present and past physical environment - climate, hydrology and glaciology; biota - treeline, vegetation, vertebrate zoology, and historical biogeography; abiotic processes - geomorphological and pedological and the role of man - bioclimatology, archaeology and technological impact, including radioecology. The book will appeal to academics and students of environmental and biological science, as well as providing a significant source for conservationists', government agencies and industrial organizations.

This benchmark text integrates the recent revolution in the molecular-developmental genetics of plants with mainstream evolutionary thought. There is increasing cooperation between strongly genomics-influenced researchers, with their strong grasp of technology - and evolutionary morphogenetists and systematists who are more deeply rooted in comparative biology and patterns of plant evolution. This book discusses our increasing understanding of gene function and expression, along with modern phylogenies integrating morphological and molecular data to highlight specific key transitions in plant evolution most worthy of intensive study. Furthermore, it explores increasing knowledge of the physical expression of plant development from disciplines such as anatomy and palaeobotany. Rather than focus on the technical aspects of plant genomics, this book provides genuinely integrated explanations of plant evolution.
This leading panel of contributors have succeeded in turning a demanding subject into an accessible volume for a wide range of professional botanists and postgraduates and senior undergraduates in developmental biology, applied molecular biology, molecular evolution, morphogenesis, organismal botany and theoretical systematics.

Create improved crops with these techniques for plant cell culture This comprehensive book presents the basic concepts and applied techniques of plant cell and tissue culture. More and more, commercial plant breeding and development employs these methods to protect crops from weather, pests, and disease. Covering the history of in vitro breeding as well as emerging research trends, In Vitro Plant Breeding offers specific techniques for crop improvement and breeding. Designed as a text for undergraduate students, In Vitro Plant Breeding presents the theory of tissue culture as well as practical techniques. Its step-by-step instructions and clear illustrations facilitate learning and laboratory work. In Vitro Plant Breeding gives in-depth information and the latest research on the vital concepts and techniques of in vitro breeding, including: applications of plant tissue culture morphogenesis and organogenesis micropropagation producing haploid plants in vitro in vitro pollination and fertilization problems of embryo culture somatic hybridization protoplast technology selection of desirable traits cryopreservation and plant breeding micrograftingThis helpful book is plentifully illustrated with examples, schematic descriptions, and tables to make the concepts clear and easy to learn. In Vitro Plant Breeding is an essential resource.

This volume examines the Middle East's leading armed forces and their role in both military and political affairs. It considers their missions, doctrine, training, equipment and effectiveness as fighting forces. At the same time, the various expert contributors discuss the relations between the armed forces and their respective governments, with the issues raised ranging from internal repression to budgetary matters. On some issues, high-ranking officers force Arab regimes to meet their demands. In other ways, regimes impose restrictions on the armies in order to maintian their own political control. These mechanisms also reduce the soldiers' military quality, and hence their ability to wage war.
Among the armed forces specifically examined in this volume are those of Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Syria and Turkey. Other chapters provide an overview of the Middle Eastern militaries' political role and strategic value; of why Arab armies have performed poorly in warfare; and of the part played by the United States and Russia in training, arms supplies, shaping the doctrine of local militaries, and engaging in direct intervention.

A wide variety of plants, ranging in size from forest floor herbs to giant canopy trees, rely on animals to disperse their seeds. Typical values of the proportion of tropical vascular plants that produce fleshy fruits and have animal-dispersed seeds range from 50-90%, depending on habitat. In this section, the authors discuss this mutualism from the plant's perspective. Herrera begins by challenging the notion that plant traits traditionally interpreted as being the product of fruit-frugivore coevolution really are the outcome of a response-counter-response kind of evolutionary process. He uses examples of congeneric plants living in very different biotic and abiotic environments and whose fossilizable characteristics have not changed over long periods of time to argue that there exists little or no basis for assuming that gradualistic change and environmental tracking characterizes the interactions between plants and their vertebrate seed dispersers. A common theme that runs through the papers by Herrera, Denslow et at. , and Stiles and White is the importance of the 'fruiting environment' (i. e. the spatial relationships of conspecific and non-conspecific fruiting plants) on rates of fruit removal and patterns of seed rain. Herrera and Denslow et at. point out that this environment is largely outside the control of individual plant species and, as a result, closely coevolved interactions between vertebrates and plants are unlikely to evolve.

With the erratic changes in climate, crop plants are facing many forms of biotic stresses. When plants are under stress, among several gene families, regulatory genes play a vital role in signal transduction in modulating the expression of genes underpinning several defense pathways and targeting regulatory proteins (viz, transcription factors (TFs)) can be the alternative. Transcription factors directly regulate the downstream R genes and are excellent candidates for disease resistance breeding. Till date, numerous transcription factors have been identified and characterized structurally and functionally. Of them, TF families such as WRKY, NAC, Whirly, Apetala2 (AP2), ethylene responsive elements (ERF) etc. are found to be associated with transcriptional reprogramming of plant defense response. These TFs are responsive to the pathogen's PAMPs/DAMPs - host's PRR protein interactions and specifically binds to the cis-elements of defense genes and regulate their expression. With this background, realizing the importance of TFs in resistance breeding, this book discusses the recent research and developments in this field for various crops.

Cell Polarity in Development and Disease, Volume 154 in the Methods in Cell Biology series, highlights new advances in the field, with this new volume presenting interesting chapters on a variety of timely topics, including Cell polarity in the protist-to-animal transition, Polarized actin networks in development: Case studies from Drosophila, Protein clustering and cell polarization, Polarity in the Drosophila female germline, Context Matters: Mechanisms governing epithelial polarization in C. elegans, Epithelial polarity in the fly: Principles and diversity, Polarizing epithelial expulsion and expulsion driven by mispolarization, The Role of Apical-Basal Polarization in the Mammalian First Cell Fate Decision, and much more.

As agriculture becomes more mechanized and science increases the possibilities for using inputs to enhance production, the role of PGRs becomes more vital. Plant Growth Regulators in Agriculture and Horticulture provides agriculture professionals and researchers with the information needed to effectively tap these versatile resources to enhance crop production.Through discussions of the "classical five" phytohormones--gibberellins, cytokinins, ethylene, abscisic acid, and auxins--and the growing number of nontraditional PGRs such as oligosaccharins and brassinosteroids, Plant Growth Regulators in Agriculture and Horticulture reviews past and present uses of PGRs in managing crop yield and offers some speculation on future directions.Detailed discussions on the use of PGRs in, for example, grain, ornamental, and citrus crops, introduce readers to strategies for enhancing crop quantity and quality, for improving the postproduction quality of life of perishable plants, and for crop load management, respectively. The book also includes informative visuals, such as tables of common, chemical, and trade names of different commercially available PGRs; diagrams of various PGR processes; as well as before-and-after pictures illustrating the effects of PGRs.Plant Growth Regulators in Agriculture and Horticulture is a comprehensive text covering the role of plant growth regulators in: root formation manipulating yield potential plant stress protection ornamental horticulture postharvest life of ornamentals manipulating fruit development and storage quality citriculture reducing fruit drop bloom-thinning strategiesIf the history of agriculture, which is over 10,000 years old, was condensed into a twenty-four-hour span, science-based plant breeding would be only about fifteen minutes old. Still, the role of PGRs in agriculture is modest compared to other agrochemicals, such as fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides. Plant Growth Regulators in Agriculture and Horticulture is an invaluable guide to the varied roles filled by PGRs in the attainment of higher-quality, better-yielding crops.

Cell culture methodologies have become standard procedures in most plant laboratories. Currently, facilities for in vitro cell cultures are found in practically every plant biology laboratory, serving different purposes since tissue culture has turned into a basic asset for modern biotechnology, from the fundamental biochemical aspects to the massive propagation of selected individuals. "Plant Cell Culture Protocols, Third Edition is divided into five convenient sections that cover topics from general methodologies, such as culture induction, growth and viability evaluation, statistical analysis and contamination control, to highly specialized techniques, such as clonal propagation, haploid production, somatic embryogenesis, organelle transformation. The volume concludes with a section on the laborious process of measuring the epigenetics changes in tissue cultures."Written in the successful Methods in Molecular Biology (TM) series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible protocols, and notes on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and easily accessible, Plant Cell Culture Protocols, Third Edition seeks to serve both professionals and novices with its guide to the most common and applicable techniques and methods for plant tissue and cell culture.

Production of food to meet the demands of an ever-increasing human population in the world is the major task and challenge to agriculture today. The conventional methods of plant breeding alone can no longer cope with the situation. The success of any crop improvement program depends on the extent of genetic variability in the base population, but due to denuding of forests and agricultural land, the naturally occurring pool of germplasm is being depleted. An urgent need is therefore ap parent to create new variability and increase the genetic base of agricul tural crops. Agricultural biotechnology has progressed to a stage in the produc tion of plants where specific characteristics to improve their yield, ap pearance, disease-resistance, nutritional quality and adaptation to ad verse soil conditions can be built into the seed. This concept of built-in quality implies a continuous scientific endeavour to improve plant char acters using a wide range of possibilities, and it also implies a scrutiny of the materials and methods available in the world today."

CRC Handbook of Phytochemical Constituents of GRAS Herbs and Other Economic Plants is a unique catalog that includes more than 15,000 phytochemical constituents from over 1,000 higher plant species. This volume covers all of the generally-recognized-as-safe (GRAS) herbs and at least 250 important food and medicinal plants. Each entry features the scientific name, one or more common names, a listing of phytochemical constituents, a single datum or range of quantitative data (wet-weight to dry-weight in parts per million), two-letter abbreviation identifying the plant part, and three-letter abbreviation(s) indicating the source(s) of the data.

The extraordinary amount of data compiled into an easy-to-use tabular format makes the CRC Handbook of Phytochemical Constituents of GRAS Herbs and Other Economic Plants a volume useful to all pharmacologists, toxicologists, nutritionists, pharmacognicists, and food scientists.

This second edition compiles state-of-art protocols to study the molecular mechanisms that determine proteome composition and contribute to maintaining protein homeostasis. Chapters describe methods that range from the in vitro analysis of enzyme cascades to real-time in vivo studies. Written in the successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible protocols, and notes on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Plant Proteostasis: Methods and Protocols, Second Edition aims to be a useful practical guide to researches to help further their study in this field.

This edited book deals with plant genetic resources and their status, availability, and ecological niche in natural habitat. Usage and conservation practices followed by various tribal communities and their rationale are also discussed in the book. The book explores application of biological tools to conserve plant species and optimization protocols for conservation and elicitation of secondary metabolites and other value addition products. The book is organized into sub-themes covering: (i) Ecological status of plant genetic resources (ii) Traditional ethnobotanical knowledge and conservation practices (iii) Ex-situ conservation practices and bioprospecting Globally, plant genetic resources are deeply rooted in culture and economy. Since the early 1990s, the changing socio-economic situation has increasingly put pressure on plant genetic resources, in some cases leading to a severe loss of their diversity. For this reason, most vulnerable areas at risk of genetic erosion have been demarcated and protected by forest laws and regulations. Therefore, this book brings to light the opinions of leading experts in the area of ecology, conservation biodiversity, ethanobotany, and bioprospecting of plant genetic resources. The book is for use by graduate and advanced undergraduate students and researchers in plant physiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, and agriculture. Additionally, it is extremely useful as a general reference on conservation of flora and large-scale cultivation.

Positive interactions and interdependence in plant communities offers a new look at an old problem ? the nature of the communities. This book marshals ecological literature from the last century on facilitation to make the case against the widely accepted ?individualistic? notion of community organization. Clearly, many species in many communities would not be present without the ameliorating effects of other species. In other words, communities are not produced only by summing the population ecology of species.

Sage, the Genus Salvia is one of the most famous and used herbs in the world. This volume, containing over twenty chapters written by leading experts in the field, presents a comprehensive coverage on all aspects of Salvia. Topics covered include the presentation of the most known Salvia species (approximately 400 of them), the distribution of the genus, its chemotaxonomy, ecophysiology, cultivation technology and breeding methods, information on the extraction, isolation, characterisation and structure of a large number of bioactive components, the various pharmacological properties of the species, the share of Salvia products in aromatherapy and the natural cosmetics market, biotechnological techniques, and commercial aspects.

This comprehensive volume on Salvia should be of interest to everyone involved in medicinal and aromatic plant applications and research.