Recent advances in plant genomics and molecular biology have revolutionized our understanding of plant genetics, providing new opportunities for more efficient and controllable plant breeding. Successful techniques require a solid understanding of the underlying molecular biology as well as experience in applied plant breeding. Bridging the gap between developments in biotechnology and the application of biotechnology in plant improvement, "Molecular Plant Breeding" provides an integrative overview of issues from basic theories to their applications to crop improvement, including molecular marker technology, gene mapping, genetic transformation, quantitative genetics, and breeding methodology.

Growth and Reproductive Strategies of Freshwater Phytoplankton brings both the phycological (i.e. botanical) and limnological (i.e. ecological) literature into focus to reveal the morphological, reproductive and physiological characteristics of these microscopic organisms. Emphasis is on adaptive strategies for survival in stressful and seasonally changing aquatic habitats. The synthesis of this literature from an organismal and evolutionary perspective is unique. The following important groups of planktonic algae are considered: cyanobacteria, green algae, diatoms, dinoflagellates, cryptomonads, and chrysophyte flagellates. For each algal group, the importance of both growth and loss processes influencing biogeography and seasonality is emphasised. Where appropriate, the importance of sexual reproduction and benthic resting stages is considered. The final three chapters bring together data on three major ecological processes relevant to phytoplankton, i.e. resource competition, grazing by herbivorous zooplankton, and morphological and physiological 'packaging plans' of algal cells.

Reproduction is a fundamental feature of life, it is the way life persists across the ages. This book offers new, wider vistas on this fundamental biological phenomenon, exploring how it works through the whole tree of life. It explores facets such as asexual reproduction, parthenogenesis, sex determination and reproductive investment, with a taxonomic coverage extended over all the main groups - animals, plants including 'algae', fungi, protists and bacteria. It collates into one volume perspectives from varied disciplines - including zoology, botany, microbiology, genetics, cell biology, developmental biology, evolutionary biology, animal and plant physiology, and ethology - integrating information into a common language. Crucially, the book aims to identify the commonalties among reproductive phenomena, while demonstrating the diversity even amongst closely related taxa. Its integrated approach makes this a valuable reference book for students and researchers, as well as an effective entry point for deeper study on specific topics.

Green tea, imported from China, occupies an important place in the daily lives of Malians. They spend so much time preparing and consuming the sugared beverage that it became the country's national drink. To find out how Malians came to practice the tea ritual, this study follows the beverage from China to Mali on its historical trade routes halfway around the globe. It examines the circumstances of its introduction, the course of the tea ritual, the equipment to prepare and consume it, and the meanings that it assumed in the various places on its travel across geographical regions, political economies, cultural contexts, and religious affiliations.

An understanding of crop physiology and ecophysiology enables the horticulturist to manipulate a plant's metabolism towards the production of compounds that are beneficial for human health when that plant is part of the diet or the source of phytopharmaceutical compounds. The first part of the book introduces the concept of Controlled Environment Horticulture as a horticultural production technique used to maximize yields via the optimization of access to growing factors. The second part describes the use of this production technique in order to induce stress responses in the plant via the modulation of these growing factors and, importantly, the way that this manipulation induces defence reactions in the plant resulting in the production of compounds beneficial for human health. The third part provides guidance for the implementation of this knowledge in horticultural production.

With the continued effects of climate change threatening the security of the global food system, there is a greater emphasis on ensuring successful crop establishment as a means of optimising agricultural production. Advances in seed science and technology for more sustainable crop production considers how an improved understanding of seed quality, germination and seedling emergence can address this challenge. The book reviews the development of new techniques to ensure seed quality control, including seed phenotyping, as well as the role of genetic and environmental factors in determining seed longevity. In its comprehensive exploration of seed science and technology, the book highlights how an informed understanding of seed biology can contribute to mitigating the effects of climate change on seed quality and consequently crop production.

Every month tons of green tea travel from China to West Africa in a movement that largely thrives beyond the attention of Western observers. In this trade, Malian merchants assumed a central role. They travel to China, visit family gardens and the factories, which process and package the product. Together with their Chinese suppliers, they select the tea leaves and create their brand. On Bamako's largest market, the Grand Marche, more than a hundred different tea brands are found, whose packages have colourfully, often eye-catching designs with brand-names such as Gazelle, Tombouctou, Arafat and Obama. This book explores the unique tea culture that celebrates with its brands the strength of desert animals, the fading glory of trading places, the excitement of social events and the accomplishments of admired politicians.

Plant breeders have long sought technologies to extend human control over nature. Early in the twentieth century, this led some to experiment with startlingly strange tools like x-ray machines, chromosome-altering chemicals, and radioactive elements. Contemporary reports celebrated these mutation-inducing methods as ways of generating variation in plants on demand. Speeding up evolution, they imagined, would allow breeders to genetically engineer crops and flowers to order. Creating a new food crop or garden flower would soon be as straightforward as innovating any other modern industrial product. In Evolution Made to Order, Helen Anne Curry traces the history of America's pursuit of tools that could intervene in evolution. An immersive journey through the scientific and social worlds of midcentury genetics and plant breeding and a compelling exploration of American cultures of innovation, Evolution Made to Order provides vital historical context for current worldwide ethical and policy debates over genetic engineering.

In the mid-twentieth century, American plant breeders, frustrated by their dependence on natural variation in creating new crops and flowers, eagerly sought technologies that could extend human control over nature. Their search led them to celebrate a series of strange tools: an x-ray beam directed at dormant seeds; a drop of chromosome-altering colchicine on a flower bud; a piece of radioactive cobalt in a field of growing crops. According to scientific and popular reports of the time, these mutation-inducing methods would generate variation on demand, in turn allowing breeders to genetically engineer crops and flowers to order. Creating a new crop or flower would soon be as straightforward as innovating any other modern industrial product. In Evolution Made to Order, Helen Anne Curry traces the history of America's pursuit of tools that could speed up evolution. Focusing on three key technologies x-rays, colchicine, and radioisotopes it is an immersive journey through the scientific and social worlds of mid-century genetics and plant breeding and a compelling exploration of American cultures of innovation. As Curry reveals, the creation of genetic technologies was deeply entangled with other areas of technological innovation from electromechanical to chemical to nuclear. Providing vital historical context for current worldwide ethical and policy debates over genetic engineering, Evolution Made to Order is an important study of biological research and innovation in America that will interest modern biotechnologists, biologists, and breeders, as well as historians of science and technology.

Somatic genome manipulation is required when a sexual crossing approach cannot be used in breeding or genetic treatment of an individual organism. Examples can include gene- or cell-therapy of a person to correct disease, genetic improvement of vegetatively propagated plants, and genetic replacement of cytoplasm without significantly modifying the nuclear genome. The advantage of somatic genome manipulation is maintenance of the general genotype while correcting one or more traits. Somatic genome manipulation is also an option for genetic improvement of sexually propagated plants in polyploidy breeding or in overcoming issues of sexual incompatibility. Recent novel technologies in somatic genome manipulation are developing quickly but much of this literature is fragmented and difficult or inconvenient to access. This book represents the first attempt to assemble updated reviews, detailed protocols, and their applications in all fields in which somatic genome manipulation has thrived. This is a truely one-of-a-kind work that brings together the most important and relevant advances in somatic genome manipulation in plants, algae, microorganisms, humans and animals, and demonstrates where the science interacts and where it diverges. The chapters are written by experts on the topic with ready-to-use protocols that were originally developed or adapted from the literature in their laboratories. We expect that this book will be useful for students, researchers, and teachers in both plant and animal research as a resource for the latest information on somatic genome manipulation and for its useful laboratory methods.

Use of Microbes for the Alleviation of Soil Stresses, Volume 2: Alleviation of Soil Stress by PGPR and Mycorrhizal Fungi describes the most important details and advances related to the alleviation of soil stresses by PGPR and mycorrhizal fungi. Comprised of eleven chapters, the book reviews the role of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in alleviation of salt stress, the role of AM fungi in alleviating drought stress in plants, the impact of biotic and abiotic stressors and the use of mycorrhizal fungi to alleviate compaction stress on plant growth. Written by experts in their respective fields, Use of Microbes for the Alleviation of Soil Stresses, Volume 2: Alleviation of Soil Stress by PGPR and Mycorrhizal Fungi is a comprehensive and valuable resource for researchers and students interested in the field of microbiology and soil stresses.

Genetic engineering and biotechnology along with conventional breeding have played an important role in developing superior cultivars by transferring economically important traits from distant, wild and even unrelated species to the cultivated varieties which otherwise could not have been possible with conventional breeding. There is a vast amount of literature pertaining to the genetic improvement of crops over last few decades. However, the wonderful results achieved by crop scientists in food legumes' research and development over the years are scattered in different journals of the World. The two volumes in the series 'Alien Gene Transfer in Crop Plants' address this issue and offer a comprehensive reference on the developments made in major food crops of the world. These volumes aim at bringing the contributions from globally renowned scientists at one platform in a reader-friendly manner. The 1st volume entitled, 'Alien Gene Transfer in Crop Plants: Innovations, Methods and Risk Assessment" will deal exclusively with the process and methodology. The contents of this volume have been designed to appraise the readers with all the theoretical and practical aspects of wide hybridization and gene transfer like processes and methods of gene transfer, role of biotechnology with special reference to embryo rescue, genetic transformation, protoplast fusion and molecular marker technology, problems such as cross incompatibility and barriers to distant hybridization and solutions to overcome them. Since wild and weedy relatives of crop plants may have negative traits associated with them, there are always possibilities of linkage drag while transferring alien alleles. Therefore, problems and limitations of alien gene transfer from these species will also be discussed in this series. Further, the associated risks with this and assessment of risks will also be given due weightage.

How do plants, even if still buried underground, know that it's their time to bloom? What signals them to begin the challenging task of making flowers, and how do they make the variety of flower shapes, colours, and scents? What kind of instructions does the plant carry? Flowers enrich the beauty of meadows and gardens, but of course, they are not there simply to please us. Biologically, blossoms form a critical aspect of the reproductive cycle of many plants. In this book, the distinguished scientist Maxine Singer explains what we have pieced together about the genetics behind flowering. She describes in a clear and accessible account the key genes which, regulated by other genes, modulated by epigenetic effects, and responding to environmental cues, cause plants to flower at a particular time, and define the variety of flowers. The remarkably intricate processes involved in making flowers have evolved in nature alongside the pollinating birds and insects that the flowers must attract if there is to be another generation. The processes involved in flowering have only been unravelled in the past twenty years, and the implications for ensuring production of food, including fruits and seeds, are profound. This is cutting-edge science, and we have much still to learn, but the story being revealed that lies behind the flowers in our gardens, parks, and fields is proving astonishing.

Despite the recent advances made in the improvement of crucifer crops using conventional breeding techniques, the yield levels and the oil and meal quality could not be improved as expected. The understanding of genetic material (DNA/RNA) and its manipulation by scientists has provided the opportunity to improve crucifers by increasing its diversity beyond conventional genetic limitations. The application of the biotechnological techniques will have major impacts in two ways: first, it provides a number of techniques/methods for efficient selection for favorable variants and second, it gives an opportunity to utilize alien variation available in the crucifers by using the novel techniques of biotechnology to develop high yielding varieties with good nutritional quality, having resistance to insect, pest, and disease resistance.

For thousands of years, forest biomass or wood has been among the main energy sources of humans around the world. Since the industrial revolution, fossil fuels have replaced wood and become the dominant source of energy. The use of fossil fuels has the disadvantage of increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs), especially carbon dioxide (CO2), with the consequent warming of global climate and changes in precipitation. In this context, the substitution of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources like forest biomass is among the ways to mitigate climate change. This book summarizes recent experiences on how to manage forest land to produce woody biomass for energy use and what are the potentials to mitigate climate change by substituting fossil fuels in energy production. In this context, the book addresses how management can affect the supply of energy biomass using short-rotation forestry and the conventional forestry applying long rotations. Furthermore, the book outlines the close interaction between the ecological systems and industrial systems, which controls the carbon cycle between the atmosphere and biosphere. In this context, sustainable forest management is a key to understand and control indirect carbon emissions due to the utilization of forest biomass (e.g. from management, harvesting and logistics, and ecosystem processes), which are often omitted in assessing the carbon neutrality of energy systems based on forest biomass. The focus in this book is on forests and forestry in the boreal and temperate zones, particularly in Northern Europe, where the woody biomass is widely used in the energy industry for producing energy.

Jatropha curcas or Physic Nut is a small tree (bush plant) that produces fruits under tropical climate. The fruits contained seed that are ~40% oil rich. This oil is excellent for biodiesel. The bush is a now new coming crop because it may cope with harsh environmental conditions such as semi-aridity and poor land. It is considered as one alternative for climate mitigation that does not compete with arable land normally dedicated to food crop and can be used to regain degraded land or fight desertification. This bush has been considered seriously by the international community only recently (~2006-2008), but worldwide scientists did an outstanding job to drawn Jatropha out of its semi-wild status and bring it on the industrial scene. Problems remains, but we have now a comprehensive picture of this crop and almost every technological challenged were addressed. From now, the job will have to concentrate on breeding in order to domesticate this species. Therefore, it is the right time to sum up worldwide contributions in a comprehensive book with a breeding looking to improve the chance of this plant to stabilize as a crop and to fulfil with the expectations that humans invested in it. A book with this perspective will help international community to give a step on. The book will be a broad and comprehensive look on Jatropha until the details since the book is being contributed by international experts worldwide that have already published works in the international press of Science. Illustrations, tables geographic maps, GPS location, etc are added by each contributors according to the feeling they have concerning what they think their contribution should be.

The book will be a broad and comprehensive look on Jatropha until the details since the book is being contributed by international experts worldwide that have already published works in the international press of Science. Illustrations, tables geographic maps, GPS location, etc are added by each contributors according to the feeling they have concerning what they think their contribution should be. This book will benefit the scientific community immensely. Being aware of any challenges related to Jatropha, i.e. (i) its economy in Asia (India, China) and South America (Brazil), (ii) basics of biofuel technology, (iii) physiology, (iv) farming, (v) byproducts, (vi) biotechnology, (vii) genetic resource (germplasm) and their benefit for the crop by genetic transfer, (viii) genetic map, (ix) comparative genetics, (x) genomics. Breeders and technologist will have access to a complete digested view on Jatropha to decide where and how they should move on with their investigations.

This book will shed light on the effect of salt stress on plants development, proteomics, genomics, genetic engineering, and plant adaptations, among other topics. Understanding the molecular basis will be helpful in developing selection strategies for improving salinity tolerance. The book will cover around 25 chapters with contributors from all over the world.

Die Zeit der Biotechnologie ist gekommen: Sie greift zunehmend in unser tägliches Leben ein – und dennoch fehlt nicht nur Laien, sondern oft auch Studierenden und Wissenschaftlern ein fundiertes Wissen. Abhilfe und eine Fülle von Informationen bietet das einführende Lehrbuch von Reinhard Renneberg: eine verständlich geschriebene und visuell opulent aufbereitete Gesamtschau der Biotechnologie. Sie eignet sich zum schnellen Nachschlagen und zum Schmökern ebenso wie für ein intensives Studium. Bereits die erste Ausgabe des Buches wurde begeistert aufgenommen und liegt nach knapp zwölf Jahren nun – komplett überarbeitet und um zahlreiche spannende Boxen erweitert – in der fünften Auflage vor. Wie Renneberg zeigt, kann ein wissenschaftliches Lehrbuch durchaus spannend und unterhaltsam sein. Verschiedene didaktische Elemente ergänzen den Grundtext der 5. Auflage: - Das erste Biotech-Lehrbuch der Welt mit vollständigen und kommentierten Internet-Quellen zu Filmen, Fotos, Dokumenten und Originalarbeiten - Noch mehr Boxen zu speziellen Themen und zur Geschichte vertiefen das Wissen - Meinungen von Experten veranschaulichen Standpunkte aus Forschung und Industrie - Doppelseiten mit Fotos zeigen wichtige Biotechnologie-Produkte und -Prozesse sowie daran beteiligte Wissenschaftler; Panoramatafeln fassen das Wissen zusammen - Mit dem Glossar lassen sich auch schwierige Fachbegriffe schnell nachschlagen und verstehen Wissenschaft kann Spaß machen – das vermittelt dieses Buch schon beim Durchblättern!  

The book inculcates a holistic approach to improve crop productivity and quality for ensuring food security and nutrition to all. This warrants to identify various stress conditions prevalent globally and tailor crop adaptability and productivity to the maximum accordingly, employing physio-molecular modern tools and techniques with judicious amalgamation with conventional crop husbandry. As a result, the book chapters encompass diverse environmental factors, internal physio-molecular processes and their modulations with a final goal of expanding area under cultivation by utilization of constraint terrains of poor site quality and augmenting sustainable crop productivity and quality on the face of rapidly changing climate. The book includes role of plant hormones, nano-sensors, nanomaterials etc. in stress tolerance responses, capturing recent advancement in the field of stress tolerance, enlarging scope of coverage by gleaning modern literature and providing glimpses of futuristic scenario of agriculture practices that can render 'balance staple food rich in nutrition, vitamins and minerals' to teeming billions of global human populations. Thus, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the role of stress environment and understanding stress physiology for developing stress tolerant crops. The book covers current knowledge and future prospects to achieve enhanced food security under stress environment of crops. The renowned contributors elegantly crafted each chapter, suited alike to both classroom texts for graduate students and reference material for researchers. The language and style are simple and lucid with liberal use of illustrations. This book should be on the shelf of university/ personal libraries for inquisitive students and enlightened researchers.

In the past 20 years, there has been a revolution in plant sciences, as new methods of molecular biology and biophysics have been applied to investigate environmental stress, particularly desiccation tolerance. Today, there is a good level of understanding of how plant cells cope with extreme water stress. This book is divided into four sections, dealing with 1) the technical background to desiccation tolerance studies, 2) the frequency and levels of dehydration stress tolerance in biological systems, 3) mechanisms of damage and tolerance, and 4) a brief prospect and retrospect. It covers orthodox and recalcitrant seeds, pollen and spores, vegetative parts, and other plant tissues.

Plant Breeding Reviews is an ongoing series presenting state-of-the art review articles on research in plant genetics, especially the breeding of commercially important crops. Articles perform the valuable function of collecting, comparing, and contrasting the primary journal literature in order to form an overview of the topic. This detailed analysis bridges the gap between the specialized researcher and the broader community of plant scientists.

Many of the crops widely grown today stem from a very narrow genetic base and so understanding and preserving crop genetic resources is vital to the security of food systems worldwide. This work presents state-of-the-art reviews on plant genetics and the breeding of all types of crops by both traditional means and molecular methods. With emphasis on methodology, understanding crop genetics, and applications to major crops, it covers a wide range of crops including row crops, fruits, vegetables, nuts and trees grown for timber and pulp.

Seeds: Ecology, Biogeography, and Evolution of Dormancy and Germination differs from all other books on seed germination. It is an all-encompassing volume that provides a working hypothesis of the ecological and environmental conditions under which various kinds of seed dormancy have developed. It also presents information on the seed germination of more than 3500 species of trees, shrubs, vines and herbaceous species, making this a valuable reference for anyone studying germination.
This book delivers information on characteristics of each type of seed dormancy, how each type of dormancy is broken in nature, and what environmental conditions are required for germination after dormancy is broken. It explains how studies should be done to distinguish persistent from transient seed banks, and covers which species should be controlled, propagated, and conserved. Seeds gives the reader insight and guidelines for doing ecologically meaningful studies on the biogeography and evolution of seed dormancy and germination in order to better understand plant reproductive strategies, life history traits, adaptations to habitats, and physiological processes.
Key Features
* Evolutionary/phylogenetic origins and relationships of various kinds of seed dormancy
* A world biogeographical perspective on seed dormancy and germination
* Ecophysiology of seeds with each type of dormancy
* Critical evaluation of methodology used in soil seed bank studies
* Germination ecology of plants with specialized habitat and life cycle types
* Genetic and maternal preconditioning effects on seed dormancy and germination
* Guidelines for doing ecologically-meaningful germination studies

"Plant Breeding Reviews" presents state-of-the-art reviews on plant genetics and the breeding of all types of crops by both traditional means and molecular methods. Many of the crops widely grown today stem from a very narrow genetic base; understanding and preserving crop genetic resources is vital to the security of food systems worldwide. The emphasis of the series is on methodology, a fundamental understanding of crop genetics, and applications to major crops. It is a serial title that appears in the form of one volume per year. Articles perform the function of collecting, comparing, and contrasting the primary journal literature in order to form an overview of the topic. This detailed analysis aims to bridge the gap between the specialized researcher and the broader community of plant scientists. The series is particularly important at this time when the methods of molecular biology are leading to genetically-engineered crops, and when the supply of wild varieties of many crops are threatened.