Download or read book The Art of Plant Evolution written by W. John Kress and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Book published on the occasion of exhibition at Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in 2009.
Download or read book Plant Evolution and the Origin of Crop Species written by James F. Hancock and published by CABI. This book was released on 2012 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The genetic variability that developed in plants during their evolution is the basic of their domestication and breeding into the crops grown today for food, fuel and other industrial uses. This third edition of Plant Evolution and the Origin of Crop Species brings the subject up-to-date, with more emphasis on crop origins. Beginning with a description of the processes of evolution in native and cultivated plants, the book reviews the origins of crop domestication and their subsequent development over time. All major crop species are discussed, including cereals, protein plants, starch crops, fruits and vegetables, from their origins to conservation of their genetic resources for future development.
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 When Plants Took Over the Planet written by Chris Thorogood and published by Happy Yak. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This beautifully illustrated book follows the amazing story of plant evolution, from the first plants arriving on a dark and lifeless planet to the colorful—often weird and wonderful—world of today’s varied and vibrant plant life.
Download or read book The Evolution of Plants written by Kathy Willis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blends evidence from the fossil record and data from biomolecular studies to tell the story of plant evolution from the earliest forms of life to the present day. Its straightforward explanations and clear illustrations provide the most accessible introduction to plant evolution available.
Download or read book The Ecology and Evolution of Ant Plant Interactions written by Victor Rico-Gray and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ants are probably the most dominant insect group on Earth, representing ten to fifteen percent of animal biomass in terrestrial ecosystems. Flowering plants, meanwhile, owe their evolutionary success to an array of interspecific interactions—such as pollination, seed dispersal, and herbivory—that have helped to shape their great diversity. The Ecology and Evolution of Ant-Plant Interactions brings together findings from the scientific literature on the coevolution of ants and plants to provide a better understanding of the unparalleled success of these two remarkable groups, of interspecific interactions in general, and ultimately of terrestrial biological communities. The Ecology and Evolution of Ant-Plant Interactions synthesizes the dynamics of ant-plant interactions, including the sources of variation in their outcomes. Victor Rico-Gray and Paulo S. Oliveira capture both the emerging appreciation of the importance of these interactions within ecosystems and the developing approaches that place studies of these interactions into a broader ecological and evolutionary context. The collaboration of two internationally renowned scientists, The Ecology and Evolution of Ant-Plant Interactions will become a standard reference for understanding the complex interactions between these two taxa.
Download or read book The Evolution of Plants written by K. J. Willis and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2002-01-10 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a broad but provocative examination of the evolution of plants from the earliest forms of life to the development of our present flora. Taking a fresh, modern approach to a subject often treated very stuffily, the book incorporates many recent studies on the morphological evolution of plants, enlivens the subject with current research on ancient DNA and other biomolecular markers, and places plant evolution in the context of climate change and mass extinction. Also includes special Biome Maps, showing the flora on the Earth's surface at different geological ages. Written for a non-specialist audience.
Download or read book Morphology and Evolution of Vascular Plants written by Ernest M. Gifford and published by W. H. Freeman. This book was released on 1989-02-15 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Plant Evolution in the Mediterranean written by John D. Thompson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely and comprehensive update of the original text integrates a diverse and scattered literature to produce a synthetic account of Mediterranean plant evolutionary ecology. It maintains the accessible style of its previous version whilst incorporating recent work in the context of a new structural framework.
Download or read book Plant Resistance to Herbivores and Pathogens written by Robert S. Fritz and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-07-15 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Far from being passive elements in the landscape, plants have developed many sophisticated chemical and mechanical means of deterring organisms that seek to prey on them. This volume draws together research from ecology, evolution, agronomy, and plant pathology to produce an ecological genetics perspective on plant resistance in both natural and agricultural systems. By emphasizing the ecological and evolutionary basis of resistance, the book makes an important contribution to the study of how phytophages and plants coevolve. Plant Resistance to Herbivores and Pathogens not only reviews the literature pertaining to plant resistance from a number of traditionally separate fields but also examines significant questions that will drive future research. Among the topics explored are selection for resistance in plants and for virulence in phytophages; methods for studying natural variation in plant resistance; the factors that maintain intraspecific variation in resistance; and the ecological consequences of within-population genetic variation for herbivorous insects and fungal pathogens. "A comprehensive review of the theory and information on a large, rapidly growing, and important subject."—Douglas J. Futuyma, State University of New York, Stony Brook
Download or read book Plant Resins written by Jean H. Langenheim and published by Timber Press (OR). This book was released on 2003 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few people are aware of the great diversity of resin-producing plants or the remarkable roles resins play in the lives of plants and people. Plant Resins tells the whole story about these fascinating plant products.
Download or read book Evolution Made to Order written by Helen Anne and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-11-11 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Phylogeny and Evolution of the Angiosperms written by Douglas Soltis and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-01-24 with total page 587 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although they are relative latecomers on the evolutionary scene, having emerged only 135?170 million years ago, angiosperms—or flowering plants—are the most diverse and species-rich group of seed-producing land plants, comprising more than 15,000 genera and over 350,000 species. Not only are they a model group for studying the patterns and processes of evolutionary diversification, they also play major roles in our economy, diet, and courtship rituals, producing our fruits, legumes, and grains, not to mention the flowers in our Valentine’s bouquets. They are also crucial ecologically, dominating most terrestrial and some aquatic landscapes. This fully revised edition of Phylogeny and Evolution of the Angiosperms provides an up-to-date, comprehensive overview of the evolution of and relationships among these vital plants. Incorporating molecular phylogenetics with morphological, chemical, developmental, and paleobotanical data, as well as presenting a more detailed account of early angiosperm fossils and important fossil information for each evolutionary branch of the angiosperms, the new edition integrates fossil evidence into a robust phylogenetic framework. Featuring a wealth of new color images, this highly synthetic work further reevaluates long-held evolutionary hypotheses related to flowering plants and will be an essential reference for botanists, plant systematists, and evolutionary biologists alike.
Download or read book Ecology and Evolution of Flowers written by Lawrence D. Harder and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2006-11-30 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Floral biology, floral function, sexual systems, diversification.
Download or read book The Evolutionary Biology of Plants written by Karl J. Niklas and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1997-06-08 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a comprehensive synthesis of modern evolutionary biology as it relates to plants. This text recounts the saga of plant life from its origins to the radiation of the flowering plants. Through computer-generated "walks" it shows how living plants might have evolved.
Download or read book Plant Physics written by Karl J. Niklas and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-02-06 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Galileo, who used the hollow stalks of grass to demonstrate the idea that peripherally located construction materials provide most of the resistance to bending forces, to Leonardo da Vinci, whose illustrations of the parachute are alleged to be based on his study of the dandelion’s pappus and the maple tree’s samara, many of our greatest physicists, mathematicians, and engineers have learned much from studying plants. A symbiotic relationship between botany and the fields of physics, mathematics, engineering, and chemistry continues today, as is revealed in Plant Physics. The result of a long-term collaboration between plant evolutionary biologist Karl J. Niklas and physicist Hanns-Christof Spatz, Plant Physics presents a detailed account of the principles of classical physics, evolutionary theory, and plant biology in order to explain the complex interrelationships among plant form, function, environment, and evolutionary history. Covering a wide range of topics—from the development and evolution of the basic plant body and the ecology of aquatic unicellular plants to mathematical treatments of light attenuation through tree canopies and the movement of water through plants’ roots, stems, and leaves—Plant Physics is destined to inspire students and professionals alike to traverse disciplinary membranes.
Download or read book Hybrid written by Noel Kingsbury and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Noel Kingsbury reveals that even those imaginary perfect foods are themselves far from anything that could properly be called natural, rather, they represent the end of a millennia-long history of selective breeding and hybridization. Starting his story at the birth of agriculture, Kingsbury traces the history of human attempts to make plants more reliable, productive, and nutritiousa story that owes as much to accident and error as to innovation and experiment. Drawing on historical and scientific accounts, as well as a rich trove of anecdotes, Kingsbury shows how scientists, amateur breeders, and countless anonymous farmers and gardeners slowly caused the evolutionary pressures of nature to be supplanted by those of human needs and thus led us from sparse wild grasses to succulent corn cobs, and from mealy, white wild carrots to the juicy vegetables we enjoy today. At the same time, Kingsbury reminds us that contemporary controversies over the Green Revolution and genetically modified crops are not new, plant breeding has always had a political dimension."--Publisher's description.
