Apomixis in Plants presents a comprehensive review of different aspects of asexual seed formation in plants. This is important in plant research since apomixis could greatly facilitate breeding in important crops. It is also interesting theoretically because it carries problems related to genetic variation and evolution to its extreme. The book features a broad selection of topics, including a historical review of ideas and landmarks in the field; comparisons with other types of asexual reproduction in higher plants and with related phenomena in animals and related plants; a presentation of cytology and embryology of apomicts and the diversified terminology in the field; views on the genetic background of apomixis and environmental effects on its expression; and the interrelation between apomixis and other traits. Additional topics covered include classical and modern theories of sexual versus asexual reproduction; geographical and taxonomical trends in apomicts; ecological implications of apomixis, and a review of future possibilities for using apomixis in plant breeding. Apomixis in Plants is an important reference volume for researchers and students in all areas of botany, ecology, and plant breeding.

Apomixis in Angiosperms: Nucellar and Integumentary Embryony is based on original cytoembryological data and critically reviewed literature on more than 250 species from 57 families of angiosperms. The book covers the complete process of nucellar and integumentary embryo formation and viable seed development within species, families, and among angiosperms in general. Many species (some of which are economically important) characterized by adventive embryony are listed. The book also provides an original simple classification of apomixis and offers a new approach to differentiating embryological structures in cases of apomixis and amphimixis. Apomixis in Angiosperms: Nucellar and Integumentary Embryony will be a useful reference for embryologists, botanists, cytologists, geneticists, and plant breeders. It will also benefit any researcher interested in studying somatic embryo formation in tissue culture.

Plant Development and Evolution, the latest release in the Current Topics in Developmental Biology series, highlights new advances in the field, with this new volume presenting interesting chapters on the Evolution of the plant body plan, Lateral root development and its role in evolutionary adaptation, the Development of the vascular system, the Development of the shoot apical meristem and phyllotaxis, the Evolution of leaf diversity, the Evolution of regulatory networks in land plants, The role of programed cell death in plant development, the Development and evolution of inflorescence architecture, the Molecular regulation of flower development, the Pre-meiotic another development, and much more. - Provides the authority and expertise of leading contributors from an international board of authors - Presents the latest release in the Current Topics in Developmental Biology series - Updated release includes the latest information on Plant Development and Evolution

Apomixis is the consequence of a concerted mechanism that harnesses the sexual machinery and coordinates developmental steps in the ovule to produce an asexual (clonal) seed. Altered sexual developments involve widely characterized functional and anatomical changes in meiosis, gametogenesis, and embryo and endosperm formation. The ovules of apomictic plants skip meiosis and form unreduced female gametophytes whose egg cells develop into a parthenogenetic embryo, and the central cells may or may not fuse to a sperm to develop the seed endosperm. Thus, functional apomixis involves at least three components, apomeiosis, parthenogenesis, and endosperm development, modified from sexual reproduction that must be coordinated at the molecular level to progress through the developmental steps and form a clonal seed. Despite recent progress uncovering specific genes related to apomixis-like phenotypes and the formation of clonal seeds, the molecular basis and regulatory network of apomixis is still unknown. This is a central problem underlying the current limitations of apomixis breeding. This book collates twelve publications addressing different topics around the molecular basis of apomixis, illustrating recent discoveries and advances toward understanding the genetic regulation of the trait, discussing the possible origins of apomixis and the remaining challenges for its commercial deployment in plants.

Sexual reproduction is the predominant mode of perpetuation for flowering plant species. Investigating the reproductive strategies of plants has grown to become a vast area of research and, in crop plants, covers events from flowering to fruit and seed development; in wild species, it extends up to seed dispersal and seedling recruitment. Thus, reproduction determines the extent of yield in crop plants and, in wild plants, also determines the efficacy of recruiting new adults to the population, making this field important both from fundamental and applied plant biology perspectives. Moreover, in light of the growing concerns regarding food and nutritional security for the growing population and preserving biological diversity, reproductive biology of flowering plants has acquired special significance. Extensive studies on various facets of reproduction are being carried out around the world. However, these studies are scattered across research journals and reviews from diverse areas of biology. The present volume covers the whole spectrum of reproductive ecology, from phenology and floral biology, to sexuality and pollination biology/ecology including floral rewards, breeding systems, apomixis and seed dispersal. In turn, transgene flow, its biosafety and mitigation approaches, and the ‘global pollinator crisis’, which has become a major international concern in light of the urgent need to sustain crop yield and biodiversity, are discussed in detail. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable resource for students, teachers and researchers of botany, zoology, ecology, agriculture and forestry, as well as conservation biologists.

Thirty-four years have elapsed since the publication of the late Professor P. Maheshwari's text, An Introduction to the Embryology of Angiosperms, a work which for many years served as an invaluable guide for students and a rich source book for research workerso Various texts dealing with sections of the braad spectrum oftopics encompassed by Maheshwari in his book have appeared in the interim, but a compendious modem work dealing with the whole field has been lacking. This present volume splendidly meets the need, and it is altogether fitting that Professor B. M. lohri, long an associate and close colleague of Professor Maheshwari and himself a prolific contributor to the subject, should have undertaken the task of editing it. When Maheshwari wrote, it was stiIl feasible for one author to handIe the subject, but today even someone with his fine bread th of vision and depth of understanding could not, alone, do it justice. So the effort has to be a collaborative one; and Professor lohri's achievement has been to bring together a team of authoritative collaborators, assign them their responsibilities, and put them to work to produce a text as integrated in its treatment as the diversity of the subject would allow. The product vividly illustrates the advances that have been made in the study of angiosperm reproductive systems in the last 30 years, and the book is surely destined to become the new standard for student and researcher alike.

Apomixis for rice improvement; Transferring apomixis to maize; Transfer of alien chromosome-carrying gene for apomixis to cultived pennisetum; Cytological mechanisms of apospory and diplospory; Genetics of apomixis mechanisms; Embryo and flower development in rice and apomixis in Chinese chive (Allium tuberosum); Modifying embryo sac development and strategies for cloning the apomixis gene from buffelgrass; Molecular markers for apomixis in Pennisetum; Using Arabidopsis in the analysis of megaspore development; Developmental genetics of floral patterning in Arabidopsis thaliana; Isolating apomictic mutnats in Arabidopsis thaliana - prospects adn progess.