الصفحة 1
الصفحة 1
Oilseeds
Genome Mapping and Molecular Breeding in Plants presents the current status of the elucidation and improvement of plant genomes of economic interest. The focus is on genetic and physical mapping, positioning, cloning, monitoring of desirable genes by molecular breeding and the most recent advances in genomics. The series comprises seven volumes: Cereals and Millets; Oilseeds; Pulses, Sugar and Tuber Crops; Fruits and Nuts; Vegetables; Technical Crops; and Forest Trees.
Nutrient Cycling in Terrestrial Ecosystems
The first part of the book presents the fundamentals of nutrient cycling. Topics included are cycling of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur and micronutrients. The second part discusses nutrient cycling at an ecosystem scale, covering cropping systems, pastures, natural grasslands, arid lands, tundras and forests. The final chapter reviews current models of nutrient cycling.
Nitrogen Fixation in Agriculture, Forestry, Ecology, and the Environment
Sustainability has a major part to play in the global challenge of continued development of regions, countries, and continents all around the World and biological nitrogen fixation has a key role in this process. This volume begins with chapters specifically addressing crops of major global importance, such as soybeans, rice, and sugar cane. It continues with a second important focus, agroforestry, and describes the use and promise of both legume trees with their rhizobial symbionts and other nitrogen-fixing trees with their actinorhizal colonization. An over-arching theme of all chapters is the interaction of the plants and trees with microbes and this theme allows other aspects of soil microbiology, such as interactions with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and the impact of soil-stress factors on biological nitrogen fixation, to be addressed. Furthermore, a link to basic science occurs through the inclusion of chapters describing the biogeochemically important nitrogen cycle and its key relationships among nitrogen fixation, nitrification, and denitrification. The volume then provides an up-to-date view of the production of microbial inocula, especially those for legume crops.
Nitrogen Cycling in the Americas : Natural and Anthropogenic Influences and Controls
The rate of creation of reactive nitrogen (NR) on the earth has dramatically increased in the last half century mainly due to the production of N-fertilizer through the Haber-Bosch process, fossil fuel combustion, and the cultivation of plants that fix N from the atmosphere. The anthropogenic production of NR has been especially high in developed countries of the temperate zone, such as the USA and Canada, where severe eutrophication of estuaries and coastal zones, acidification of lakes and streams, loss of biodiversity, and reduced forest productivity have become common environmental problems associated with increasing nitrogen loads to ecosystems. This book presents a series of studies from across the Americas whose aim is to highlight key natural processes that control nitrogen cycling as well as discuss the main anthropogenic influences on the nitrogen cycle in both the tropical and temperate regions of the Americas.
New Trends in Soil Micromorphology
The soil water retention curve, the saturated hydraulic conductivity and the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity function are basic soil hydraulic functions and parameters. Ample apprehension of the soil hydraulic functions and parameters is required for a successful formulation of the principles leading to sustainable soil management, agricultural production and environmental protection. From these, all the other parameters, required in the solution of the practical tasks, are derived.
New experiment therapies for old disease
Mucorales are fast-growing thermotolerant fungi that are ubiquitous in the environment. They have a worldwide distribution and are commonly found in decaying organic material or agricultural and forest soils (1). Mucormycosis is a group of mould infections caused by fungi in the class previously known as Zygomycetes now renamed Mucormycetes (2).
Nature Conservation : Concepts and Practice
This book provides a multi-disciplinary coverage of the broad fields of species, community and landscape conservation.
Natural Products : Drug Discovery and Therapeutic Medicine
Although the natural product drug discovery programs of the large drug companies are now equaled by programs for the high throughput screening of synthetic compounds generated through combinatorial chemistry, natural compounds still hold great promise to overcome such problems as antibiotic resistance, the emergence of new diseases, the failure to conquer old diseases, and the toxicity of some contemporary medical products. In Natural Products: Drug Discovery and Therapeutic Medicine, a panel of recognized experts and leaders in the field discuss the past successes of natural products as medicines and review future possibilities arising from both conventional and new technologies. High-performance liquid chromatography profiling, combinatorial synthesis, genomics, proteomics, DNA shuffling, bioinformatics, and genetic manipulation all now make it possible to rapidly evaluate the activities of extracts as well as purified components derived from microbes, plants, and marine organisms. The authors apply these methods to new natural product drug discovery, to accessing microbial diversity, to investigating specific groups of products (Chinese herbal drugs, antitumor drugs from microbes and plants, terpenoids, and arsenic compounds), and to exploiting specific sources (the sea, rainforest, and endophytes). These new opportunities show how research and development trends in the pharmaceutical industry can advance to include both synthetic compounds and natural products, and how this paradigm shift can be more productive and efficacious.
Natural Disasters as Interactive Components of Global-Ecodynamics
This book opens a new approach to the study of global environmental changes having unfavourable character for mankind and other living systems. The main advantage of the book consists in the accumulation of knowledge from different sciences to parametrize the global ecodynamic process. Natural catastrophes are considered as an interactive element of global natural dynamics which are described by means of simulation models of global nature/society. The realization of this approach allows the integration within a complex structure of all international and national means of environmental monitoring and provides a tool for objective evaluation of the environmental quality. The main purpose of this book is to develop a universal information technology to estimate the state of environmental subsystems functioning under various climatic and anthropogenic conditions.
Natural Disasters and Extreme Events in Agriculture : Impacts and Mitigation
Agricultural production is highly dependent on weather, climate and water availability and is adversely affected by the weather and climate-related disasters. Droughts and natural disasters such as floods can result in crop failures, food insecurity, famine, loss of property and life, mass migration and negative national economic growth. It may not be possible to prevent the occurrence of these natural disasters, but the resultant disastrous effects can be reduced considerably through proper planning and effective preparation. Vulnerability associated with the hazards of natural disasters can be controlled to some extent by accurate and timely prediction and by taking counter-measures to reduce their impacts on agriculture. This book based on an expert meeting held in Beijing, China should be of interest to all organizations involved in disasters reduction and mitigation of extreme events.
Mycorrhizae : Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry
This book discusses and goes into detail on a number of topics: the molecular basis of nutrient exchange between arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and host plants; the role of AM fungi in disease protection, alleviation of soil stresses and increasing grain production; interactions of AM fungi and beneficial saprophytic mycoflora in terms of plant growth promotion; the role of AM fungi in the restoration of native ecosystems; indirect contributions of AM fungi and soil aggregation to plant growth and mycorrhizosphere effect of multitrophic interaction; the mechanisms by which mycorrhizas change a disturbed ecosystem into productive land; the importance of reinstallation of mycorrhizal systems in the rhizosphere is emphasized and their impact on landscape regeneration, and in bioremediation of contaminated soils; Ectomycorrhizae (ECM) and their importance in forest ecosystems and associations of ECM in tropical rain forests function to maintain tropical monodominance; in vitro mycorrhization of micro-propagated plants, and visualizing and quantifying endorhizal fungi; the use of mycorrhizae, mainly AM and ECM, for sustainable agriculture and forestry.
Mycorrhiza : State of the Art, Genetics and Molecular Biology, Eco-Function, Biotechnology, Eco-Physiology, Structure and Systematics
This third updated and revised edition emphasises strongly on genetics and molecular biology. It contains new chapters, which are written by the leading experts in their respective field of knowledge and expertise.Mycorrhizas are symbioses between fungi and the roots of higher plants. As more than 90% of all known species of plants have the potential to form mycorrhizal associations, the productivity and species composition and the diversity of natural ecosystems are frequently dependent upon the presence and activity of mycorrhizas. The biotechnological application of mycorrhizas is expected to promote the production of food while maintaining ecologically and economically sustainable production systems.
Multi-Source National Forest Inventory : Methods and Applications
The book describes in detail the full MS-NFI process, and the input data used – including field data, satellite images, and digital map data, as well as coarse-scale variation of forest variables. It also presents comprehensive information on the types of outputs which can be derived, including maps and statistics, describing, for example, stock volumes and development, dominant tree species, age-class distribution, and large and small-scale variation. The book will provide an invaluable resource for those involved in forest inventory, including government departments and bodies involved in forest policy, management and monitoring, forest managers, and researchers and graduate students interested in forest inventory, modelling and analysis. It will find an additional market among those interested in Earth observation, ecology and broader areas of environmental and natural resource management.
Multiple Heterogeneous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Aerial robots can be considered as an evolution of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). This book provides a quite complete overview of issues related to aerial robotics, addressing problems ranging from flight control to terrain perception and mission planning and execution. The major challenges and potentials of heterogeneous UAVs are comprehensively explored. It builds on the results of the European project COMETS, and highlights a number of key research topics in the area of UAV development, including communication, perception, teleoperation and decision making. The monograph emphasizes the current state of technology, the existing problems and potentialities of systems consisting of multiple UAVs which are heterogeneous in view of the different characteristics of the aerial vehicles, the different on-board payloads, and the different on-board information processing capabilities. The book also examines potential applications of UAVs and details a relevant application case: forest fire detection and monitoring.
Multifunctional Land Use : Meeting Future Demands for Landscape Goods and Services
The book contributes to the scientific basis for future land development strategies and helps supporting land use decision making on the political, planning and management level. In this publication they (i) analyse general principles of land use multifunctionality, (ii) highlight the specific requirements and approaches of implementing multifunctional land use from different disciplinary viewpoints, (iii) report on success stories of multifunctional land use from different geographic and political settings, and (iv) discuss modelling and monitoring approaches to scientifically assess the impact of mutlifunctional land use implementation.
Mountain Ecosystems : Studies in Treeline Ecology
This volume focuses on interaction between vegetation, relief, climate, soil and fauna in the treeline ecotone, and the effects of climate change and land use in North America and Europe.
Modern Multivariate Statistical Techniques : Regression, Classification, and Manifold Learning
Remarkable advances in computation and data storage and the ready availability of huge data sets have been the keys to the growth of the new disciplines of data mining and machine learning, while the enormous success of the Human Genome Project has opened up the field of bioinformatics. These exciting developments, which led to the introduction of many innovative statistical tools for high-dimensional data analysis, are described here in detail. The author takes a broad perspective; for the first time in a book on multivariate analysis, nonlinear methods are discussed in detail as well as linear methods.
Modelling Environmental Dynamics : Advances in Geomatic Solutions
Modelling environmental dynamics is critical to understanding and predicting the evolution of the environment in response to the large number of influences including urbanisation, climate change and deforestation. Simulation and modelling provide support for decision making in environmental management.
Micropropagation methods in temporary immersion systems
Presents vital techniques for the commercial micropropagation of plants. It explores numerous micropropagation protocols in different types of temporary immersion systems for plant species with agricultural, medicinal, ornamental, and forestry interest, detailing the type of bioreactor and the optimal parameters necessary to guarantee obtaining the largest number of commercial propagules. Written for the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step and readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls.
Microbial Root Endophytes
Plant roots may not only be colonized by mycorrhizal fungi, but also by a myriad of bacterial and fungal root endophytes that are usually not considered by the investigators of classic symbioses. This is the first book dedicated to the interactions of non-mycorrhizal microbial endophytes with plant roots. The phenotypes of these interactions can be extremely plastic, depending on environmental factors, nutritional status, genetic disposition and developmental stages of the two partners. The book deals with diversity, life history strategies, interactions, applications in agriculture and forestry, methods for isolation, cultivation, and both conventional and molecular methods for identification and detection of these endophytes. The comprehensive reviews demonstrate the high diversity of interactions and will provoke further studies to better understand the mechanisms which determine whether a plant-microbial interaction remains asymptomatic, leads to disease or to a mutualistic interaction.
