الصفحة 1
الصفحة 1
Wild Urban Woodlands : New Perspectives for Urban Forestry
This volume focuses on a particular component of the urban forest - trix - urban wild woodlands. We understand these to be stands of woody plants, within the impact area of cities, whose form is characterized by trees and in which a large leeway for natural processes makes possible a convergence toward wilderness. The wilderness character of these urban woodlands can vary greatly. We differentiate between two kinds of w- derness. The "old wilderness" is the traditional one; it may return slowly to woodland areas when forestry use has been abandoned. The enhancement of wilderness is a task already demanded of urban and peri-urban forestry in many places. This book would like to direct the attention of the reader to a second kind of wilderness, which we call "new wilderness." This arises on heavily altered urban-industrial areas where abandonment of use makes such change possible. The wild nature of urban abandoned areas was discovered in the 1970s through urban-ecological research.
Western North American Juniperus Communities : A Dynamic Vegetation Type
Juniperus woodlands and savannas in western North America are both extensive and dynamic, occupying approximately 55 million hectares. Various species of Juniperus have been increasing in density and are expanding into associated grasslands, reducing the size of the grasslands. The reason for the Juniperus expansion is highly debated, but seems to be related to high levels of herbivory, changing fire frequency and probably global change phenomena. Western North American Juniperus Communities addresses various aspects of the biology, ecology, and management of Juniperus woodlands and savannas, by synthesizing past, current, and proposed future research. The book includes information on community distribution, composition, and structure; the effects of alterations in ecosystem processes such as modifications in water budgets; and the impacts of humans, herbivory, and fire on the communities. The book will provide professionals with a solid background in Juniperus ecosystems, enabling them to better understand the communities and manage the communities for maximum sustained productivity and diversity.
Tree Transgenesis : Recent Developments
A continuous development in plant biotechnology including gene technology has been observable during the past 20 years. Different methods elaborated with model plants were also applied to forest trees on a larger scale. Whereas in the beginning the meaning of the term “plant biotechnology” embraced a wide variety of meanings like, e. g. , regeneration of plantlets via tissue culture, embryo rescue, somatic embryogenesis and gene transfer, the focus of this term has changed more and more.
Protocols for Micropropagation of Woody Trees and Fruits
Micropropagation has become a reliable and routine approach for large-scale rapid plant multiplication, which is based on plant cell, tissue and organ culture on well defined tissue culture media under aseptic conditions. A lot of research efforts are being made to develop and refine micropropagation methods and culture media for large-scale plant multiplication of several number of plant species.
Protocol for Somatic Embryogenesis in Woody Plants
These volumes provided readers extensive reviews on somatic embryogenesis of important angiosperm and gymnosperm tree species; an excellent source of information for newcomers or those already engaged in research. However, these book volumes did not cover stepwise "detailed protocols" for inducing somatic embryogenesis. This book contains 46 chapters, divided into 4 sections: A) 12 chapters on conifers, B) 14 chapters on fruits, C) 14 chapters on angiosperms, and D) 6 chapters on histology, bioencapsulation, protoplasts, cryopreservation, double staining and thin cell layer sectioning. The book provides stepwise protocols for somatic embryogenesis of a range of selected woody plants in order to assist researchers to initiate somatic embryogenic cultures without too much alterations in protocols. Each chapter provides information on initiation and maintenance of embryogenic cultures; somatic embryo development, maturation, and germination; acclimitization and field transfer of somatic seedlings. Some chapteres include applications of somatic embryogenesis cultures, e.g. protoplasts, encapsulation, cryopreservation, genetic transformation, genetic fidelity with molecular markers, and bioreactor.
Nitrogen-fixing Actinorhizal Symbioses
This book is the self-contained sixth volume of a comprehensive series on nitrogen fixation. It presents the state-of-the-art in regards to actinorhizal symbioses. Like legumes, actinorhizal plants form root nodules that host nitrogen-fixing soil bacteria. However, because the macrosymbionts are, with one exception, woody plants rather than crop plants, actinorhizal symbioses are less well-known than legume symbioses to which they are phylogenetically related. Actinorhizal plants come from eight different families. This volume includes chapters that deal with all these aspects of the symbiosis and both symbionts plus their ecological role and use. Other chapters tackle the global distribution of different actinorhizal plants and their microsymbionts and how this impacts the question of co-evolution of the micro- and macrosymbionts as well as comparing the actinorhizal and leguminous symbioses.
