Presents an account of modern plant science, reflecting advances in genetics and genomics. This book features chapters that provide information on our understanding of plant cell biology, plant metabolism, and plant developmental biology, and discuss the relationship of plants with humans: domestication, agriculture and crop breeding.
Plant Biology is a new textbook written for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students. It is an account of modern plant science, reflecting recent advances in genetics and genomics and the excitement they have created. The book begins with a review of what is known about the origins of modern-day plants. Next, the special features of plant genomes and genetics are explored. Subsequent chapters provide information on our current understanding of plant cell biology, plant metabolism, and plant developmental biology, with the remaining three chapters outlining the interactions of plants with their environments. The final chapter discusses the relationship of plants with humans: domestication, agriculture and crop breeding. Plant Biology contains over 1,000 full color illustrations, and each chapter begins with Learning Objectives and concludes with a Summary.
"Chapter 2 was a joy to read. What a treasure trove of plant genetics information and examples ? The chapter should stimulate interest in undergraduates and lay the foundation for graduate students at the outset of their careers. It would also be a terrific primer for Ph.D. prelim exams." - Patrick Hayes, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA
"This is the most comprehensive and well written text book chapter on plant biology I have ever encountered. The coverage is incredible, and the title "metabolism" is taken in its broadest sense? I found the quality of the figures excellent. They were sufficiently stand alone to be useful in this way while being well discussed in the text." - Bob Furbank, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Canberra, Australia, writing about Chapter 4
"As a textbook, Plant Biology's pedagogic values are very high?. Plant Biology is new and sufficiently different to existing texts to warrant closer inspection?.Smith et al.'s Plant Biology is a great achievement, and the authors and publishers are to be complimented on such a worthy endeavour."
-Annals of Botany, September 2009
