At present, plants and agricultural sciences are playing a leading role in providing solutions to problems created by an ever growing world population. Through plant biotechnology scientists are seeking ways to improve crop functions that rapidly promote food production. Agricultural science is being used to experiment with producing plants tolerant to environmental stresses such as drought, salinity and coldness.Of the plant species, woody plants are producing the most abundant biomass resources, playing important roles in the suppression of carbon dioxide increase and supplying huge energy and resources to human beings in the biosphere. These Proceedings discuss the recent results of fundamental and applied research for global resource and energy, biomass production and environmental problems from the aspect of woody science. Topics include: - Formation of the vascular bundle - Biosynthesis of cellulose - Lignin biosynthesis and transgenic woody plants - Cell and tissue culture, and transformation in gymnosperms - Micropropagation of woody plants

Forest tree functional genomics; Functional genomics in forest trees; Expressed sequence tag databases from forestry tree species; Proteomics for genetic and physiological studies in forest trees: application in maritime pine; Exploring the transcriptome of the ectomycorrhizal symbiosis; Molecular biology of wood formation; Genomics of wood formation; Molecular genetics of cellulose biosynthesis in trees; Tuning lignin metabolism through genetic engineering in trees; In vitro systems for the study of wood formation; Forest tree transgenesis; Genetic modification in conifer forestry: state of the art and future potential - a case study; Transgenic forest trees for insect resistance; Modification of flowering in forest trees; Stability of transgene expression in Aspen; Asexual production of marker-free transgenetic Aspen using MAT vector systems; Genome mapping in forest trees; High-density linkage maps in conifer species and their potential application; Microsatellites in forest tree species: characteristics, identifcation , and applicatons; Genome mapping in populus; Genetic mapping in Acacias.

This book provides complete, comprehensive, and broad subject-based reviews for students, teachers, researchers, policymakers, conservationists, and NGOs interested in the biodiversity and conservation of woody plants. Forests cover approximately 31 percent of the world’s total landmass; 93 percent is natural forest and only 7 percent consists of planted trees. Forest decline is progressing at an alarming rate worldwide. In addition to human activities (logging, deforestation, and exploiting forest lands for agriculture and industrial use), a number of other factors – including pests and diseases, drought, soil acidity, radiation, and ozone – are cumulatively contributing to global forest decline. The present situation forces us to focus on forest conservation strategies for the present and future. Gene conservation and maintaining genetic diversity in forest ecosystems are crucial to the preservation of forest genetic resources. This calls for integrated action to implement both the in situ (on site) preservation of forest stands and ex situ (distant from the original site) strategies for the conservation of woody plants’ genetic resources. Selected priority areas include: 1) assessing patterns of genetic diversity and threats, 2) understanding the biological processes regulating genetic diversity, 3) assessing the impact of human activities and climate change on genetic diversity, and 5) finding methods for prioritizing species and populations for the conservation of forest trees genetic resources. All chapters were written by leading scientists in their respective fields, which include: woody plant diversity, ecology and evolution; assessment of genetic diversity in forest tree populations; conservation planning under climate change; and in situ and ex situ strategies, including biotechnological approaches, for the conservation of woody plants genetic resources.

This two-volume book gives a broad coverage of various aspects of plant molecular biology relevant to the improvement of woody plants. The authors provide background information on genetic engineering and molecular marker techniques, and specific examples of species in which sufficient progress has been made.

The quality of human life has been maintained and enhanced for generations by the use of trees and their products. In recent years, ever rising human population growth has put tremendous pressure on trees and tree products; growing awareness of the potential of previously unexploited tree resources and environmental pollution have both accelerated development of new technologies for tree propagation, breeding and improvement. Biotechnology of trees may be the answer to solve the problems which cannot be solved by conventional breeding methods. The combination of biotechnology and conventional methods such as plant propagation and breeding may be a novel approach to improving and multiplying in large number the trees and woody plants. So far, plant tissue culture technology has largely been exploited in the propagation of ornamental plants, especially foliage house plants, by com mercial companies. Generally, tissue culture of woody plants has been recal citrant. However, limited success has been achieved in tissue culture of angiosperm and gymnosperm woody plants. A number of recent reports on somatic embryogenesis in woody plants such as Norway spruce (Picea abies), Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), Sandalwood (Santalurn album), Citrus, Mango (Mangifera indica), etc. , offer a ray of hope of: a) inexpensive clonal propa gation for large-scale production of plants or "emblings" or "somatic embryo plants", b) protoplast work, c) cryopreservation, d) genetic transformation, and e) artificial or manufactured seed production.

World population is increasing at an alarming rate and this has resulted in increasing tremendously the demand for tree products such as wood for construction materials, fuel and paper, fruits, oils and medicines etc. This has put immense pressure on the world’s supplies of trees and raw material to industry and will continue to do so as long as human population continues to grow. Also, the quality of human diet, especially nutritional components, is adversely affected due to limited genetic improvement of most of fruit trees. Thus there is an immediate need to increase productivity of trees. Improvement has been made through conventional breeding methods, however, conventional breeding is very slow due to long life cycle of trees. A basic strategy in tree improvement is to capture genetic gain through clonal propagation. Clonal propagation via organogenesis is being used for the production of selected elite individual trees. However, the methods are labour intensive, costly, and produce low volumes. Genetic gain can now be captured through somatic embryogenesis. Formation of embryos from somatic cells by a process resembling zygotic embryogenesis is one of the most important features of plants. In 1958, Reinert in Germany and Steward in USA independently reported somatic embryogenesis in carrot cultures. Since then, tremendous progress in somatic embryogenesis of woody and non-woody plants has taken place. It offers a potentially large-scale propagation system for superior clones.

This proceedings is based on a joint meeting of the two IUFRO (International Union of Forestry Research Organizations) Working Parties, Somatic Cell Genetics (S2.04-07) and Molecular Genetics (S2.04-06) held in Gent, Belgium, 26-30 September, 1995. Although a joint meeting of the two Working Parties had been discussed in the past, this was the first such meeting that became a successful reality. In fact this meeting provided an excellent forum for discussions and interactions in forest bioteclUlology that encouraged the participants to vote for a next joint meeting. In the past decade rapid progress has been made in the somatic cell genetics and molecular genetics of forest trees. In order to cover recent developments in the broad area of biotechnology, the scientific program of the meeting was divided into several sessions. These included somatic embryogenesis, regeneration, transformation, gene expression, molecular markers, genome mapping, and biotic and abiotic stresses. The regeneration of plants, produced by organogenesis or somatic embryogenesis, is necessary not only for mass cloning of forest trees, but also for its application in genetic transformation and molecular biology. Although micropropagation has been achieved from juvenile tissues in a number of forest tree species, in vitro regeneration from mature trees remains a challenging problem in most hardwoods and conifers. The mechanisms involved in the transition from juvenile to mature phase in woody plants are poorly understood. This transition can now be investigated at the molecular level.

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. However, many forest and fruit tree species still remain recalcitrant to in vitro culture and require highly specific culture conditions for plant growth and development. The recent challenges on plant cell cycle regulation and the presented potential molecular mechanisms of recalcitrance are providing excellent background for understanding on totipotency and what is more development of micropropagation protocols. For large-scale in vitro plant production the important attributes are the quality, cost effectiveness, maintenance of genetic fidelity, and long-term storage. The need for appropriate in vitro plant regeneration methods for woody plants, including both forest and fruit trees, is still overwhelming in order to overcome problems facing micropropagation such as somaclonal variation, recalcitrant rooting, hyperhydricity, polyphenols, loss of material during hardening and quality of plant material. Moreover, micropropagation may be utilized, in basic research, in production of virus-free planting material, cryopreservation of endangered and elite woody species, applications in tree breeding and reforestation.

Tea is an important non-alcoholic beverage plant of the world. Cultivation of tea is very important as it earns revenue for the tea growing nations especially the developing countries such as India. Although conventional breeding is well-established and has contributed significantly for varietal improvement of this plant and other Camellia species with ornamental value, yet applications of biotechnology are required to intervene some of the issues where conventional breeding is restricted particularly for woody plants such as tea. It is note-worthy to mention that some amounts of biotechnology works in several facets of tea and its wild species have also been done. In the present book, a state-of-the-art on various aspects of breeding and biotechnology has been complied in eight chapters. They are: i) Origin and descriptions of health benefits as well as morphological classification as first chapter, ii) Breeding and cytogenetics that comprise with various conventional approaches of varietal improvement of tea along with their genetic resources, iii) Micropropagation which deals with in-depth study of clonal propagation, iv) Somatic embryogenesis along with alternative techniques such as suspension culture, cry-preservation etc. v) Molecular breeding that deals with application of various DNA-based markers, linkage map etc., vi) Genetic transformation and associated factors, vii) Stress physiology complied with various works done in tea along with its wild relatives on abiotic as well as biotic stress, and viii) Functional genomics that describe the various works of molecular cloning and characterizations, differential gene expression, high-throughput sequencing, bioinformatics etc. Importantly, the author has made exclusive tables in most of the chapters that include the summary of the works in particular topic. In a nutshell, the book compiles the work already been done, identifies the problems, analyzes the gaps on breeding and biotechnological works of tea as well as its wild species and discusses the future scope as conclusion. Every effort has been made to include all the published works till June 2013. The book will be a useful resource for post-graduate, doctoral as well post-doctoral students working on tea as well as other woody plants. This will also be useful for the scientists working in the areas of life sciences, genomics, biotechnology and molecular biology.

The development of new plant varieties is a long and tedious process involving the generation of large seedling populations for the selection of the best individuals. While the ability of breeders to generate large populations is almost unlimited, the selection of these seedlings is the main factor limiting the generation of new cultivars. Molecular studies for the development of marker-assisted selection (MAS) strategies are particularly useful when the evaluation of the character is expensive, time-consuming, or with long juvenile periods. The papers published in the Special Issue “Plant Genetics and Molecular Breeding” report highly novel results and testable new models for the integrative analysis of genetic (phenotyping and transmission of agronomic characters), physiology (flowering, ripening, organ development), genomic (DNA regions responsible for the different agronomic characters), transcriptomic (gene expression analysis of the characters), proteomic (proteins and enzymes involved in the expression of the characters), metabolomic (secondary metabolites), and epigenetic (DNA methylation and histone modifications) approaches for the development of new MAS strategies. These molecular approaches together with an increasingly accurate phenotyping will facilitate the breeding of new climate-resilient varieties resistant to abiotic and biotic stress, with suitable productivity and quality, to extend the adaptation and viability of the current varieties.