Download or read book The Diversity and Evolution of Plants written by Lorentz C. Pearson and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2023-08-11 with total page 682 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This exciting new textbook examines the concepts of evolution as the underlying cause of the rich diversity of life on earth-and our danger of losing that rich diversity. Written as a college textbook, The Diversity and Evolution of Plants introduces the great variety of life during past ages, manifested by the fossil record, using a new natural classification system. It begins in the Proterozoic Era, when bacteria and bluegreen algae first appeared, and continues through the explosions of new marine forms in the Helikian and Hadrynian Periods, land plants in the Devonian, and flowering plants in the Cretaceous. Following an introduction, the three subkingdoms of plants are discussed. Each chapter covers one of the eleven divisions of plants and begins with an interesting vignette of a plant typical of that division. A section on each of the classes within the division follows. Each section describes where the groups of plants are found and their distinguishing features. Discussions in each section include phylogeny and classification, general morphology, and physiology, ecological significance, economic uses, and potential for research. Suggested readings and student exercises are found at the end of each chapter.
Download or read book Diversity and Evolution of Land Plants written by M. Ingrouille and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Diversity and Evolution of Land Plants provides a fresh and long overdue treatment of plant anatomy and morphology for the biology undergraduate of today. Setting aside the traditional plod through the plant taxa, the author adopts a problem-based functional approach, exploring plant diversity as a series of different solutions to the design problems facing plant life on land.
Download or read book Plant Diversity and Evolution written by Robert J. Henry and published by Cabi. This book was released on 2005 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Importance of plant diversity; Relationships between the families of flowering plants; Diversity and evolution of gymnosperms; Chloroplast genomes of plants; The mitochondrial genome of higher plants: a target for natural adaptation; Reticulate evolution in higher plants; Crucifer evolution in the post-genomic era; Genetic variation in plant populations: assessing cause an pattern; Evolution of the flower; Diversity in plant cell walls; Diversity in secondary metabolism in plants; Ecological importance of species diversity; Genomic diversity in nature and domestication; Conserving genetic diversity in plants of environmental, social or economic importance.
Download or read book Diversity and Evolutionary Biology of Tropical Flowers written by Peter K. Endress and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-07-25 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique account of the structure, biology and evolution of tropical flowering plants.
Download or read book Plant Evolution in the Mediterranean written by John D. Thompson and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2005-02-10 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plant Evolution in the Mediterranean integrates a diverse and scattered literature to produce a synthetic account of plant evolutionary ecology. The central theme is differentiation, both among and within species in the contemporary flora of the Mediterranean basin. This approach is developed by attempting to link population processes to species evolution, and by examining the variation and evolution of ecological function in the context of spatial habitat variation and regional history. This accessible text explores the evolutionary processes which have shaped plant evolution in the context of these major influences on vegetation.
Download or read book Plant Evolution written by Karl J. Niklas and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-08-12 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although plants comprise more than 90% of all visible life, and land plants and algae collectively make up the most morphologically, physiologically, and ecologically diverse group of organisms on earth, books on evolution instead tend to focus on animals. This organismal bias has led to an incomplete and often erroneous understanding of evolutionary theory. Because plants grow and reproduce differently than animals, they have evolved differently, and generally accepted evolutionary views—as, for example, the standard models of speciation—often fail to hold when applied to them. Tapping such wide-ranging topics as genetics, gene regulatory networks, phenotype mapping, and multicellularity, as well as paleobotany, Karl J. Niklas’s Plant Evolution offers fresh insight into these differences. Following up on his landmark book The Evolutionary Biology of Plants—in which he drew on cutting-edge computer simulations that used plants as models to illuminate key evolutionary theories—Niklas incorporates data from more than a decade of new research in the flourishing field of molecular biology, conveying not only why the study of evolution is so important, but also why the study of plants is essential to our understanding of evolutionary processes. Niklas shows us that investigating the intricacies of plant development, the diversification of early vascular land plants, and larger patterns in plant evolution is not just a botanical pursuit: it is vital to our comprehension of the history of all life on this green planet.
Download or read book Demons in Eden written by Jonathan Silvertown and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-11-15 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the heart of evolution lies a bewildering paradox. Natural selection favors above all the individual that leaves the most offspring—a superorganism of sorts that Jonathan Silvertown here calls the "Darwinian demon." But if such a demon existed, this highly successful organism would populate the entire world with its own kind, beating out other species and eventually extinguishing biodiversity as we know it. Why then, if evolution favors this demon, is the world filled with so many different life forms? What keeps this Darwinian demon in check? If humankind is now the greatest threat to biodiversity on the planet, have we become the Darwinian demon? Demons in Eden considers these questions using the latest scientific discoveries from the plant world. Readers join Silvertown as he explores the astonishing diversity of plant life in regions as spectacular as the verdant climes of Japan, the lush grounds of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, the shallow wetlands and teeming freshwaters of Florida, the tropical rainforests of southeast Mexico, and the Canary Islands archipelago, whose evolutionary novelties—and exotic plant life—have earned it the sobriquet "the Galapagos of botany." Along the way, Silvertown looks closely at the evolution of plant diversity in these locales and explains why such variety persists in light of ecological patterns and evolutionary processes. In novel and useful ways, he also investigates the current state of plant diversity on the planet to show the ever-challenging threats posed by invasive species and humans. Bringing the secret life of plants into more colorful and vivid focus than ever before, Demons in Eden is an empathic and impassioned exploration of modern plant ecology that unlocks evolutionary mysteries of the natural world.
Download or read book Plant Genome Diversity Volume 2 written by Johann Greilhuber and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-11-13 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Plant Evolution under Domestication written by Gideon Ladizinsky and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book emerged from a series of lectures on crop evolution at the Faculty of Agriculture of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. While many textbooks are available on general evolution, only a few deal with evolution under domestication. This book is a modest attempt to bridge this gap. It was written for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of crop evolution, ethnobotany, plant breeding and related subjects. Evolution under domestication is unique in the general field of plant evolution for three main reasons: (a) it is recent, having started not much more than 10 000 years ago with the emergence of agri culture; (b) the original plant material, i. e. the wild progenitors of many important crop plants, still grow in their natural habitats; (c) man played in this process. These factors enable a more reliable a major role assessment of the impact of different evolutionary forces such as hybridization, migration, selection and drift under new circumstances. Interestingly, a great part of evolution under domestication has been unconscious and a result of agricultural practices which have created a new selection criteria, mostly against characters favored by natural selec tion. Introducing crop plants to new territories exposed them to different ecological conditions enhancing selection for new characters. Diversity in characters associated with crop plants evolution is virtually absent in theit wild progenitors and most of it has evolved under domestication.
Download or read book Plant Diversity written by Andrew Hipp and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book surveys the world's green plant diversity, from green algae through flowering plants, in a taxonomic and evolutionary context.
Download or read book Plant Diversity and Ecology in the Chihuahuan Desert written by Maria C. Mandujano and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-18 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmental and specific diversity in the Chihuahuan desert in general, and in the Cuatro Ciénegas Basin in particular, has long been recognized as outstanding. This book provides a global ecological overview, together with in-depth studies of specific processes. The Chihuahuan desert is the warmest in North America, and has a complex geologic, climatic and biogeographical history, which affects today’s distribution of vegetation and plants and generates complex phylogeographic patterns. The high number of endemic species reflects this complex set of traits. The modern distribution of environments, including aquatic and subaquatic systems, riparian environments, gypsum dunes and gypsum-rich soils, low levels of phosphorous and organic matter, and high salinity combined with an extreme climate call for a range of adaptations. Plants are distributed in a patchy pattern based on punctual variations, and many of them respond to different resources and conditions with considerable morphological plasticity. In terms of physiological, morphological and ecological variability, cacti were identified as the most important group in specific environments like bajadas, characterized by high diversity values, while gypsophytes and gypsovagues of different phylogenies, including species with restricted distribution and endemics.
Download or read book Understanding plant diversity and evolution in the mediterranean basin written by Nico Cellinese and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2023-04-28 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Diversity and Evolution of Land Plants written by Martin Ingrouille and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Molecular Systematics and Plant Evolution written by Peter M. Hollingsworth and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 1999-08-19 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Molecular Systematics and Plant Evolution discusses the diversity and evolution of plants with a molecular approach. It looks at population genetics, phylogeny (history of evolution) and developmental genetics, to provide a framework from which to understand evolutionary patterns and relationships amongst plants. The international panel of contributors are all respected systematists and evolutionary biologists, who have brought together a wide range of topics from the forefront of research while keeping the text accessible to students. It has been written for senior undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in the fields of botany, systematics, population / conservation genetics, phylogenetics and evolutionary biology.
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 Plants written by Martin Ingrouille and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-08-17 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introducing students to the fundamental concepts of botany, plant science, plant ecology and plant evolutionary biology, this book uses well-defined technical terms and extensive examples. It describes the evolution of land plants and algae in relation to environmental change and examines their biochemical, physiological and morphological adaptations to differing environments. Chapters on plant cell characteristics, new classifications and the topical issue of plant exploitation are included.
Download or read book Origin and Evolution of Biodiversity written by Pierre Pontarotti and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-08-27 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book includes 19 selected contributions presented at the 21st Evolutionary Biology Meeting, which took place in Marseille in September 2017. The chapters are grouped into the following five categories: · Genome/Phenotype Evolution · Self/Nonself Evolution · Origin of Biodiversity · Origin of Life · Concepts The annual Evolutionary Biology Meetings in Marseille serve to gather leading evolutionary biologists and other scientists using evolutionary biology concepts, e.g. for medical research. The aim of these meetings is to promote the exchange of ideas to encourage interdisciplinary collaborations. Offering an up-to-date overview of recent findings in the field of evolutionary biology, this book is in invaluable source of information for scientists, teachers and advanced students.
