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This book is the first comprehensive volume on conifers detailing their genomes, variations, and evolution. The book begins with general information about conifers such as taxonomy, geography, reproduction, life history, and social and economic importance. Then topics discussed include the full genome sequence, complex traits, phenotypic and genetic variations, landscape genomics, and forest health and conservation. This book also synthesizes the research included to provide a bigger picture and suggest an evolutionary trajectory. As a large plant family, conifers are an important part of economic botany. The group includes the pines, spruces, firs, larches, yews, junipers, cedars, cypresses, and sequoias. Of the phylum Coniferophyta, conifers typically bear cones and evergreen leaves. Recently, there has been much data available in conifer genomics with the publication of several crop and non-crop genome sequences. In addition to their economic importance, conifers are an important habitat for humans and animals, especially in developing parts of the world. The application of genomics for improving the productivity of conifer crops holds great promise to help provide resources for the most needy in the world.
Global climate change requires the development of programs that consider the active restoration of degraded forests and the use of native trees in afforestation to preserve the natural environment. International commitments like the UN REDD program, the Montréal Process and the Convention on Biological Diversity call for the breeding of species rarely contemplated by large industrial companies. Low-intensity breeding is the most rational strategy for those species: simple but robust, and not dependent on continuously increasing funding, and therefore effective even with a relatively small budget. It commonly focuses on high genetic diversity rather than improving economic traits and adaptability rather than productivity. Controlled crosses with full pedigrees typical of high-intensity breeding are replaced by open pollination. This book presents state-of-the-art breeding strategies from the last two decades for several forest tree species of prime importance in the natural forests of Argentina. They are distributed in the three main forestry ecoregions of the country: the subtropical dry forest (Chaco), the subtropical rain forests (Yungas and Alto Paraná rainforests) and the temperate forests of Patagonia. The book also discusses the genetic patterns of the selected species defined using genetic markers together with the analysis of the variation in quantitative traits. Further, it examines the crucial features of their reproductive biology, such as the mating system and gene flow and describes the current breeding programs. Lastly, it presents the latest developments in genetic resources and their emerging applications, concluding with some reflections and perspectives related to the conditioning imposed by climate change.
In our modern world, it is easy to overlook the natural world all around us. Only major life events, such as birth, injury, disease, and death, remind us that we are still biological organisms. We "interact" with nature in controlled and safe environments, such as zoos, theme parks, or through different forms of media. Television shows, films, and books are nearly always in exotic locations (e.g., the Kalahari Desert, the deep ocean, or Antarctica), but they inadvertently reinforce our separation from nature. Biology happens somewhere else. Author Gary Howard seeks to change that perception. The Biology of Us describes the common but fascinating examples of biology and nature that are hidden in plain sight in our daily lives. It focuses on human biology, but describes animals and plants all around, on, and in us to put human features into an evolutionary context. Many aspects of ourselves and our normal activities are examples of evolution: breathing, eating, standing up, communicating, telling time, and more. This book illustrates evolutionary strategies used successfully by common organisms for hundreds of millions of years. Howard shows that the organisms in our daily lives are not trivial neighbors or even pests but are just as amazing as those in the Serengeti or the Galápagos Islands.
Forest tree improvement has mainly been implemented to enhance the productivity of artificial forests. However, given the drastically changing global environment, improvement of various traits related to environmental adaptability is more essential than ever. This book focuses on genetic information, including trait heritability and the physiological mechanisms thereof, which facilitate tree improvement. Nineteen papers are included, reporting genetic approaches to improving various species, including conifers, broad-leaf trees, and bamboo. All of the papers in this book provide cutting-edge genetic information on tree genetics and suggest research directions for future tree improvement.
With recent technological advances, vast quantities of genetic and genomic data are being generated at an ever-increasing pace. The explosion in access to data has transformed the field of evolutionary genetics. A thorough understanding of evolutionary principles is essential for making sense of this, but new skill sets are also needed to handle and analyze big data. This contemporary textbook covers all the major components of modern evolutionary genetics, carefully explaining fundamental processes such as mutation, natural selection, genetic drift, and speciation. It also draws on a rich literature of exciting and inspiring examples to demonstrate the diversity of evolutionary research, including an emphasis on how evolution and selection has shaped our own species. Practical experience is essential for developing an understanding of how to use genetic and genomic data to analyze and interpret results in meaningful ways. In addition to the main text, a series of online tutorials using the R language serves as an introduction to programming, statistics, and analysis. Indeed the R environment stands out as an ideal all-purpose source platform to handle and analyze such data. The book and its online materials take full advantage of the authors' own experience in working in a post-genomic revolution world, and introduces readers to the plethora of molecular and analytical methods that have only recently become available. Evolutionary Genetics is an advanced but accessible textbook aimed principally at students of various levels (from undergraduate to postgraduate) but also for researchers looking for an updated introduction to modern evolutionary biology and genetics.
This book offers comprehensive information on the genomics of spruces (Picea spp.), naturally abundant conifer tree species that are widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere. Due to their tremendous ecological and economic importance, the management of forest genetic resources has chiefly focused on conservation and tree improvement. A draft genome sequence of the 20-gigabase Norway spruce genome was published in the journal Nature in 2013. Continuous efforts to improve the spruce genome assembly are underway, but are hindered by the inherent characteristics of conifer genomes: high amounts of repetitive sequences (introns and transposable elements) in the genome and large gene family expansions with regards to abiotic stress, secondary metabolism and spruces' defense responses to pathogens and herbivory. This book presents the latest information on the status of genome assemblies, provides detailed insights into transposable elements and methylation patterns, and highlights the extensive genomic resources available for inferring population genomics and climate adaptation, as well as emerging genomics tools for tree improvement programs. In addition, this volume features whole-genome comparisons among conifer species, and demonstrates how functional genomics can be used to improve gene function annotations. The book closes with an outlook on emerging fields of research in spruce genomics.
This second of two volumes on Plant Genome Diversity provides, in 20 chapters, insights into the structural evolution of plant genomes with all its variations. Starting with an outline of plant phylogeny and its reconstruction, the second part of the volume describes the architecture and dynamics of the plant cell nucleus, the third examines the evolution and diversity of the karyotype in various lineages, including angiosperms, gymnosperms and monilophytes. The fourth part presents the mechanisms of polyploidization and its biological consequences and significance for land plant evolution. The fifth part deals with genome size evolution and its biological significance. Together with Volume I, this comprehensive book on the plant genome is intended for students and professionals in all fields of plant science, offering as it does a convenient entry into a burgeoning literature in a fast-moving field.
When it comes to reproduction, gymnosperms are deeply weird. Cycads and co- fers have drawn out reproduction: at least 13 genera take over a year from polli- tion to fertilization. Since they don’t apparently have any selection mechanism by which to discriminate among pollen tubes prior to fertilization, it is natural to w- der why such a delay in reproduction is necessary. Claire Williams’ book celebrates such oddities of conifer reproduction. She has written a book that turns the context of many of these reproductive quirks into deeper questions concerning evolution. The origins of some of these questions can be traced back Wilhelm Hofmeister’s 1851 book, which detailed the revolutionary idea of alternation of generations. This alternation between diploid and haploid generations was eventually to become one of the key unifying ideas in plant evolution. Dr. Williams points out that alter- tion of generations in conifers shows strong divergence in the evolution of male and female gametes, as well as in the synchronicity of male and female gamete development. How are these coordinated to achieve fertilization? Books on conifer reproduction are all too rare. The only major work in the last generation was Hardev Singh’s 1978 Embryology of Gymnosperms, a book that summarized the previous century’s work. Being a book primarily about embry- ogy, it stopped short of putting conifer reproduction in a genetic or evolutionary context.