"International authors review achievements, new developments, trends and challenges in the field of plant mutation breeding, across the scientific community and the private sector. Chapters highlight specific challenges, such as emerging transboundary threats to crop production, and assess the overall importance of mutation breeding to food security"--

Genetic resources for food and agriculture play a crucial role in food security, nutrition and livelihoods and in the provision of environmental services. They are key components of sustainability, resilience and adaptability in production systems. They underpin the ability of crops, livestock, aquatic organisms and forest trees to withstand a range of harsh conditions. Climate change poses new challenges to the management of the world's genetic resources for food and agriculture, but it also underlines their importance. At the request of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, FAO prepared thematic studies on the interactions between climate change and plant, animal, forest, aquatic, invertebrate and micro-organism genetic resources. This publication summarizes the results of these studies.

This paper provides guidelines for new high-throughput screening methods – both phenotypic and genotypic – to enable the detection of rare mutant traits, and reviews techniques for increasing the efficiency of crop mutation breeding.

Abstract: This book presents contemporary information on mutagenesis in plants and its applications in plant breeding and research. The topics are classified into sections focusing on the concepts, historical development and genetic basis of plant mutation breeding (chapters 1-6); mutagens and induced mutagenesis (chapters 7-13); mutation induction and mutant development (chapters 14-23); mutation breeding (chapters 24-34); or mutations in functional genomics (chapters 35-41). This book is an essential reference for those who are conducting research on mutagenesis as an approach to improving or modifying a trait, or achieving basic understanding of a pathway for a trait --.

This book highlights the recent progress on the applications of mutation breeding technology in crop plants. Plant breeders and agriculturists are faced with the new challenges of climate change, human population growth, and dwindling arable land and water resources which threaten to sustain food production worldwide. Genetic variation is the basis which plant breeders require to produce new and improved cultivars. The understanding of mutation induction and exploring its applications has paved the way for enhancing genetic variability for various plant and agronomic characters, and led to advances in gene discovery for various traits. Induced mutagenesis has played a significant role in crop improvement and currently, the technology has resulted in the development and release of more than 3600 mutant varieties in most of the crop plants with great economic impact. The field of ‘mutation breeding’ has come long way to become an important approach for crop improvement. This book covers various methodologies of mutation induction, screening of mutants, genome editing and genomics advances and mutant gene discovery. The book further discusses success stories in different countries and applications of mutation breeding in food crops, horticultural plants and plantation crops. This informative book is very useful to plant breeders, students and researchers in the field of agriculture, plant sciences, food science and genetics.

This anchor volume to the series Managing Global Genetic Resources examines the structure that underlies efforts to preserve genetic material, including the worldwide network of genetic collections; the role of biotechnology; and a host of issues that surround management and use. Among the topics explored are in situ versus ex situ conservation, management of very large collections of genetic material, problems of quarantine, the controversy over ownership or copyright of genetic material, and more.

This detailed book presents recent methodologies for the task of inspecting the genomic world of plants, extracting valuable information, and presenting it in a readable way. With a focus on bioinformatics tools, the volume explores phylogenetics and evolution, Omics analysis, as well as experimental procedures for trait characterization. Written for the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters include the kind of vital expert implementation advice that will lead to successful results. Authoritative and practical, Plant Comparative Genomics serves as an ideal resource for researchers looking to implement comparative tools in order to explore their genomic data for their daily scientific work.

Climate change is expected to have a drastic impact on agronomic conditions including temperature, precipitation, soil nutrients, and the incidence of disease pests, to name a few. To face this looming threat, significant progress in developing new breeding strategies has been made over the last few decades. The first volume of Genomics and Breeding for Climate-Resilient Crops presents the basic concepts and strategies for developing climate-resilient crop varieties. Topics covered include: conservation, evaluation and utilization of biodiversity; identification of traits, genes and crops of the future; genomic and molecular tools; genetic engineering; participatory and evolutionary breeding; bioinformatics tools to support breeding; funding and networking support; and intellectual property, regulatory issues, social and political dimensions. ​

It was through control of the shattering of wild seeds that humans first domesticated plants. Now control over those very plants threatens to shatter the world's food supply, as loss of genetic diversity sets the stage for widespread hunger. Large-scale agriculture has come to favor uniformity in food crops. More than 7,000 U.S. apple varieties once grew in American orchards; 6,000 of them are no longer available. Every broccoli variety offered through seed catalogs in 1900 has now disappeared. As the international genetics supply industry absorbs seed companies—with nearly one thousand takeovers since 1970—this trend toward uniformity seems likely to continue; and as third world agriculture is brought in line with international business interests, the gene pools of humanity's most basic foods are threatened. The consequences are more than culinary. Without the genetic diversity from which farmers traditionally breed for resistance to diseases, crops are more susceptible to the spread of pestilence. Tragedies like the Irish Potato Famine may be thought of today as ancient history; yet the U.S. corn blight of 1970 shows that technologically based agribusiness is a breeding ground for disaster. Shattering reviews the development of genetic diversity over 10,000 years of human agriculture, then exposes its loss in our lifetime at the hands of political and economic forces. The possibility of crisis is real; this book shows that it may not be too late to avert it.

Genetic erosion is the loss of genetic diversity within a species. It can happen very quickly, due to catastrophic events, or changes in land use leading to habitat loss. But it can also occur more gradually and remain unnoticed for a long time. One of the main causes of genetic erosion is the replacement of local varieties by modern varieties. Other causes include environmental degradation, urbanization, and land clearing through deforestation and brush fires. In order to conserve biodiversity in plants, it is important to targets three independent levels that include ecosystems, species and genes. Genetic diversity is important to a species’ fitness, long-term viability, and ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions. Chapters in this book are written by leading geneticists, molecular biologists and other specialists on relevant topics on genetic erosion and conservation genetic diversity in plants. This divisible set of two volumes deals with a broad spectrum of topics on genetic erosion, and approaches to biodiversity conservation in crop plants and trees. Volume 1 deals with indicators and prevention of genetic erosion, while volume 2 covers genetic diversity and erosion in a number of plants species. These two volumes will also be useful to botanists, biotechnologists, environmentalists, policy makers, conservationists, and NGOs working to manage genetic erosion and biodiversity.