Plant Genome: Biodiversity and Evolution

The success in complete sequencing of “small” genomes and development of new technologies that markedly speed up the cloning and sequencing processes open the way to intense development of plant genomics and complete sequencing of DNA of some species. It is assumed that success in plant genomics will result in revolutionary changes in biotechnology and plant breeding. However, the enormous size of genomes, their extraordinary abundance of repetitive sequences, and allopolyploid force us to think that only few “basic” plant species will undergo complete sequencing, whereas genome investigations in other species will follow the principles of comparative genomics. The volume will be of interest to all students of genomics interested in phylogeny, agri-horticulture and commercial plants.