Plants play a key role in purifying the biosphere of the toxic effects of industrial activity. This book shows how systematic application of the results of investigations into the metabolism of xenobiotics (foreign, often toxic substances) in plants could make a vastly increased contribution to planetary well-being. Deep physiological knowledge gained from an accumulation of experimental data enables the great differences between the detoxifying abilities of different plants for compounds of different chemical nature to be optimally exploited. Hence planting could be far more systematically adapted to actual environmental needs than is actually the case at present.

The book could form the basis of specialist courses in universities and polytechnics devoted to environmental management, and advanced courses in plant physiology and biochemistry, for botany and integrative biology students. Fundamental plant physiology and biochemistry from the molecular level to whole plants and ecosystems are interwoven in a powerful and natural way, making this a unique contribution to the field.

An Introduction to Bioinformatics is intended to be a complete study companion for the advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate student. It is self-contained in the sense that whatever the starting point may be, the reader will gain insight into bioinformatics. Underlying the work is the belief that bioinformatics is a kind of metaphoric lens through which the entire field of biology can be brought into focus, admittedly as yet imperfect, and understood in a unified way. Reflecting the highly incomplete present state of the field, emphasis is placed on the underlying fundamentals and acquisitions of a broad and comprehensive grasp of the field as a whole.

Bioinformatics is interpreted as the application of information science to biology, in which it plays a fundamental and all-pervasive role. This interpretation enables a remarkably unified view of the entire field of biology to be taken and hence offers an excellent entry point into the life sciences for those for whom biology is unfamiliar.

Plants play a key role in purifying the biosphere of the toxic effects of industrial activity. This book shows how systematic application of the results of investigations into the metabolism of xenobiotics (foreign, often toxic substances) in plants could make a vastly increased contribution to planetary well-being. Deep physiological knowledge gained from an accumulation of experimental data enables the great differences between the detoxifying abilities of different plants for compounds of different chemical nature to be optimally exploited. Hence planting could be far more systematically adapted to actual environmental needs than is actually the case at present.

The book could form the basis of specialist courses in universities and polytechnics devoted to environmental management, and advanced courses in plant physiology and biochemistry, for botany and integrative biology students. Fundamental plant physiology and biochemistry from the molecular level to whole plants and ecosystems are interwoven in a powerful and natural way, making this a unique contribution to the field.