Download or read book Evolution and Biodiversity of Wild Polyploids written by Elvira Hörandl and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Conservation Biology written by Scott P. Carroll and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume will provide a treatment of evolutionary conservation biology that introduces and explains major concepts and also unifies recent theoretical and empirical advances.
Download or read book The Diversity of Life written by Edward O. Wilson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: View a collection of videos on Professor Wilson entitled "On the Relation of Science and the Humanities" "In the Amazon Basin the greatest violence sometimes begins as a flicker of light beyond the horizon. There in the perfect bowl of the night sky, untouched by light from any human source, a thunderstorm sends its premonitory signal and begins a slow journey to the observer, who thinks: the world is about to change." Watching from the edge of the Brazilian rain forest, witness to the sort of violence nature visits upon its creatures, Edward O. Wilson reflects on the crucible of evolution, and so begins his remarkable account of how the living world became diverse and how humans are destroying that diversity. Wilson, internationally regarded as the dean of biodiversity studies, conducts us on a tour through time, traces the processes that create new species in bursts of adaptive radiation, and points out the cataclysmic events that have disrupted evolution and diminished global diversity over the past 600 million years. The five enormous natural blows to the planet (such as meteorite strikes and climatic changes) required 10 to 100 million years of evolutionary repair. The sixth great spasm of extinction on earth--caused this time entirely by humans--may be the one that breaks the crucible of life. Wilson identifies this crisis in countless ecosystems around the globe: coral reefs, grasslands, rain forests, and other natural habitats. Drawing on a variety of examples such as the decline of bird populations in the United States, the extinction of many species of freshwater fish in Africa and Asia, and the rapid disappearance of flora and fauna as the rain forests are cut down, he poignantly describes the death throes of the living world's diversity--projected to decline as much as 20 percent by the year 2020. All evidence marshaled here resonates through Wilson's tightly reasoned call for a spirit of stewardship over the world's biological wealth. He makes a plea for specific actions that will enhance rather than diminish not just diversity but the quality of life on earth. Cutting through the tangle of environmental issues that often obscure the real concern, Wilson maintains that the era of confrontation between forces for the preservation of nature and those for economic development is over; he convincingly drives home the point that both aims can, and must, be integrated. Unparalleled in its range and depth, Wilson's masterwork is essential reading for those who care about preserving the world biological variety and ensuring our planet's health.
Download or read book Polyploidy and Genome Evolution written by Pamela Soltis and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-10-03 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Polyploidy – whole-genome duplication (WGD) – is a fundamental driver of biodiversity with significant consequences for genome structure, organization, and evolution. Once considered a speciation process common only in plants, polyploidy is now recognized to have played a major role in the structure, gene content, and evolution of most eukaryotic genomes. In fact, the diversity of eukaryotes seems closely tied to multiple WGDs. Polyploidy generates new genomic interactions – initially resulting in “genomic and transcriptomic shock” – that must be resolved in a new polyploid lineage. This process essentially acts as a “reset” button, resulting in genomic changes that may ultimately promote adaptive speciation. This book brings together for the first time the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of polyploid genome evolution with syntheses of the patterns and processes of genome evolution in diverse polyploid groups. Because polyploidy is most common and best studied in plants, the book emphasizes plant models, but recent studies of vertebrates and fungi are providing fresh perspectives on factors that allow polyploid speciation and shape polyploid genomes. The emerging paradigm is that polyploidy – through alterations in genome structure and gene regulation – generates genetic and phenotypic novelty that manifests itself at the chromosomal, physiological, and organismal levels, with long-term ecological and evolutionary consequences.
Download or read book Evolution by Gene Duplication written by Susumu Ohno and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-12-11 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is said that "necessity is the mother of invention". To be sure, wheels and pulleys were invented out of necessity by the tenacious minds of upright citi zens. Looking at the history of mankind, however, one has to add that "Ieisure is the mother of cultural improvement". Man's creative genius flourished only when his mind, freed from the worry of daily toils, was permitted to entertain apparently useless thoughts. In the same manner, one might say with regard to evolution that "natural selection mere(y tnodifted, while redundanry created". Natural selection has been extremely effective in policing alleHe mutations which arise in already existing gene loci. Because of natural selection, organisms have been able to adapt to changing environments, and by adaptive radiation many new species were created from a common ancestral form. Y et, being an effective policeman, natural selection is extremely conservative by nature. Had evolution been entirely dependent upon natural selection, from a bacterium only numerous forms of bacteria would have emerged. The creation of metazoans, vertebrates and finally mammals from unicellular organisms would have been quite impos sible, for such big leaps in evolution required the creation of new gene loci with previously nonexistent functions. Only the cistron which became redun dant was able to escape from the relentless pressure of natural selection, and by escaping, it accumulated formerly forbidden mutations to emerge as a new gene locus.
Download or read book Studies in the Opuntioideae Cactaceae written by David R. Hunt and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Conservation Biology in Sub Saharan Africa written by Richard Primack and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 712 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conservation Biology in Sub-Saharan Africa comprehensively explores the challenges and potential solutions to key conservation issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. Easy to read, this lucid and accessible textbook includes fifteen chapters that cover a full range of conservation topics, including threats to biodiversity, environmental laws, and protected areas management, as well as related topics such as sustainability, poverty, and human-wildlife conflict. This rich resource also includes a background discussion of what conservation biology is, a wide range of theoretical approaches to the subject, and concrete examples of conservation practice in specific African contexts. Strategies are outlined to protect biodiversity whilst promoting economic development in the region. Boxes covering specific themes written by scientists who live and work throughout the region are included in each chapter, together with recommended readings and suggested discussion topics. Each chapter also includes an extensive bibliography. Conservation Biology in Sub-Saharan Africa provides the most up-to-date study in the field. It is an essential resource, available on-line without charge, for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as a handy guide for professionals working to stop the rapid loss of biodiversity in Sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere.
Download or read book Biodiversity and Crop Improvement written by Shabir Hussain Wani and published by Scientific Research Publishing, Inc. USA. This book was released on 2015-05-31 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plant breeding during its evolution has been utilizing biodiversity for producing better crops. Nowadays everyone is concerned about saving the biodiversity. Intensive agricultural practices, climate change and Industrialization are having a straight impact on biodiversity. Use of single new improved varieties of crops for large areas is a big threat for crop biodiversity. Modern breeding approaches are also suggesting going back towards the land races and farmer’s varieties for gene hunting for resistance to various biotic and abiotic stresses. This book includes the description about biodiversity and crop improvement. It also addresses the utilization of plant genetic resources and crop wild relatives for crop improvement through application of traditional plant breeding techniques as well as molecular and genomic approaches. Through this multi authored book an effort has been made to assimilate the most topical results about biodiversity and crop improvement with contemporary plant breeding approaches. Eleven chapters written by leading scientists involved in crop Improvement research worldwide provide sufficient coverage of the major factors impacting utilization of biodiversity for crop improvement.
Download or read book North American Crop Wild Relatives Volume 1 written by Stephanie L. Greene and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-12-11 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The plant species that humans rely upon have an extended family of wild counterparts that are an important source of genetic diversity used to breed productive crops. These wild and weedy cousins are valuable as a resource for adapting our food, forage, industrial and other crops to climate change. Many wild plant species are also directly used, especially for revegetation, and as medicinal and ornamental plants. North America is rich in these wild plant genetic resources. This book is a valuable reference that describes the important crop wild relatives and wild utilized species found in Canada, the United States and Mexico. The book highlights efforts taken by these countries to conserve and use wild resources and provides essential information on best practices for collecting and conserving them. Numerous maps using up-to-date information and methods illustrate the distribution of important species, and supplement detailed description on the potential value these resources have to agriculture, as well as their conservation statuses and needs. There is broad recognition of the urgent need to conserve plant diversity; however, a small fraction of wild species is distinguished by their potential to support agricultural production. Many of these species are common, even weedy, and are easily overshadowed by rare or endangered plants. Nevertheless, because of their genetic proximity to agriculturally important crops or direct use, they deserve to be recognized, celebrated, conserved, and made available to support food and agricultural security. This comprehensive two-volume reference will be valuable for students and scientists interested in economic botany, and for practitioners at all levels tasked with conserving plant biodiversity. The chapters 'Public Education and Outreach Opportunities for Crop Wild Relatives in North America' and 'Genetic Resources of Crop Wild Relatives – A Canadian Perspective' are open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.
Download or read book Plant Genomes written by Jean-Nicolas Volff and published by Karger Medical and Scientific Publishers. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent major advances in the field of comparative genomics and cytogenomics of plants, particularly associated with the completion of ambitious genome projects, have uncovered astonishing facets of the architecture and evolutionary history of plant genomes. The aim of this book was to review these recent developments as well as their implications in our understanding of the mechanisms which drive plant diversity. New insights into the evolution of gene functions, gene families and genome size are presented, with particular emphasis on the evolutionary impact of polyploidization and transposable elements. Knowledge on the structure and evolution of plant sex chromosomes, centromeres and microRNAs is reviewed and updated. Taken together, the contributions by internationally recognized experts present a panoramic overview of the structural features and evolutionary dynamics of plant genomes.This volume of Genome Dynamics will provide researchers, teachers and students in the fields of biology and agronomy with a valuable source of current knowledge on plant genomes.
Download or read book Biology Conservation and Sustainable Development of Sturgeons written by Ramón Carmona and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-11-09 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sturgeons are considered “living fossils”, sharing many morphological and biological features with ancestral fish. Furthermore, sturgeons are of the utmost interest from an economic perspective, not only for the caviar but for the flesh. However, the wild populations of the majority of the species are at serious risk of extinction all over the world. So, it is urgent to develop strategies for both farming culture and conservation and recovery in natural habitats. This book provides a comprehensive view of the biology and sustainable development of sturgeons putting emphasis on the Southern Europe autochthonous species such as Acipenser nacarii and Acipenser sturio that share geographical distribution. Other relevant species (such as Huso huso, A. oxyrhinchus, A. ruthenus, A. stellatus) and areas (Germany, Russia, North America) are also considered. The contents are organised in three sections: Taxonomy and Biogeography (including the morphological and genetic analyses that clarify the taxonomy and phylogeny of sturgeons, focused on those from Southern Europe), Biology and Aquaculture (where several aspects of the developmental biology, feeding, and reproduction are considered in relation to the improvement of sturgeon farming), and Recovery and Conservation (that collates and analyses different recovery research actions, the ecology of the rivers for restoration as well as the problems related to the trade of caviar).
Download or read book Genetics and Genomics of Cotton written by Andrew H. Paterson and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-03-11 with total page 515 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Gossypium (cotton) genus presents novel opportunities to advance our understanding of the natural world and its organic evolution. In this book, advances of the past decade are summarized and synthesized to elucidate the current state of knowledge of the structure, function, and evolution of the Gossypium genome, and progress in the application of this knowledge to cotton improvement. This book provides the first comprehensive reference on cotton genomics.
Download or read book Arctic and Alpine Biodiversity Patterns Causes and Ecosystem Consequences written by F.Stuart III Chapin and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-02-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As human populations expand and have increasing access to technol ogy, two general environmental concerns have arisen. First, human pop ulations are having increasing impact on the earth system, such that we are altering the biospheric carbon pools, basic processes of elemental cycling and the climate system of the earth. Because of time lags and feedbacks, these processes are not easily reversed. These alterations are occurring now more rapidly than at any time in the last several million years. Secondly, human activities are causing changes in the earth's biota that lead to species extinctions at a rate and magnitude rivaling those of past geologic extinction events. Although environmental change is potentially reversible at some time scales, the loss of species is irrevo cable. Changes in diversity at other scales are also cause for concern. Habitat fragmentation and declines in population sizes alter genetic di versity. Loss or introduction of new functional groups, such as nitro gen fixers or rodents onto islands can strongly alter ecosystem processes. Changes in landscape diversity through habitat modification and frag mentation alter the nature of processes within and among vegetation patches. Although both ecological changes altering the earth system and the loss of biotic diversity have been major sources of concern in recent years, these concerns have been largely independent, with little concern for the environmental causes the ecosystem consequences of changes in biodiversity. These two processes are clearly interrelated. Changes in ecological systems cause changes in diversity.
Download or read book Natural Hybridization and Evolution written by Michael L. Arnold and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1997-01-30 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael L. Arnold offers an exploration of the evolutionary process of natural hybridisation, and presents data from various sources that support the paradigm of natural hybridisation as an important evolutionary process.
Download or read book Ex Situ Plant Conservation written by Center for Plant Conservation and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2013-02-22 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faced with widespread and devastating loss of biodiversity in wild habitats, scientists have developed innovative strategies for studying and protecting targeted plant and animal species in "off-site" facilities such as botanic gardens and zoos. Such ex situ work is an increasingly important component of conservation and restoration efforts. Ex Situ Plant Conservation, edited by Edward O. Guerrant Jr., Kayri Havens, and Mike Maunder, is the first book to address integrated plant conservation strategies and to examine the scientific, technical, and strategic bases of the ex situ approach. The book examines where and how ex situ investment can best support in situ conservation. Ex Situ Plant Conservation outlines the role, value, and limits of ex situ conservation as well as updating best management practices for the field, and is an invaluable resource for plant conservation practitioners at botanic gardens, zoos, and other conservation organizations; students and faculty in conservation biology and related fields; managers of protected areas and other public and private lands; and policymakers and members of the international community concerned with species conservation.
Download or read book Polyploidy and Hybridization for Crop Improvement written by Annaliese S. Mason and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2017-11-22 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of our current agricultural crops are natural or agricultural hybrids (between two or more species), or polyploids (containing more than one genome or set of chromosomes). These include potato, oats, cotton, oilseed rape, wheat, strawberries, kiwifruit, banana, seedless watermelon, triticale and many others. Polyploidy and hybridization can also be used for crop improvement: for example, to introgress disease resistance from wild species into crops, to produce seedless fruits for human consumption, or even to create entirely new crop types. Some crop genera have hundreds of years of interspecific hybridization and ploidy manipulation behind them, while in other genera use of these evolutionary processes for crop improvement is still at the theoretical stage. This book brings together stories and examples by expert researchers and breeders working in diverse crop genera, and details how polyploidy and hybridization processes have shaped our current crops, how these processes have been utilized for crop improvement in the past, and how polyploidy and interspecific hybridization can be used for crop improvement in the future.
Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Agricultural Biodiversity written by Danny Hunter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world relies on very few crop and animal species for agriculture and to supply its food needs. In recent decades, there has been increased appreciation of the risk this implies for food security and quality, especially in times of environmental change. As a result, agricultural biodiversity has moved to the top of research and policy agendas. This Handbook presents a comprehensive overview of our current knowledge of agricultural biodiversity in a series of specially commissioned chapters. It draws on multiple disciplines including plant and animal genetics, ecology, crop and animal science, food studies and nutrition, as well as social science subjects which explore the socio-economic, cultural, institutional, legal and policy aspects of agricultural biodiversity. It focuses not only on the core requirements to deliver a sustainable agriculture and food supply, but also highlights the additional ecosystem services provided by a diverse and resilient agricultural landscape and farming practices. The book provides an indispensable reference textbook for a wide range of courses in agriculture, ecology, biodiversity conservation and environmental studies.
