Desert Plants: Biology and Biotechnology

ISBN-13: 9783642025495 / Angielski / Twarda / 2010 / 503 str.

K. G. Ramawat

Opis

Deserts appear very fascinating during our short visits. However, the lives of plants and animals are very dif?cult under the harsh climatic conditions of high tempe- ture and scant water supply in deserts, sometimes associated with high concent- tions of salt. The editor of this book was born and brought up in the Great Indian Desert, and has spent much of his life studying the growth and metabolism of desert plants. It is very charming on a cool summer evening to sit at the top of a sand dune listening only to blowing air and nothing else. It has been my dream to prepare a volume on desert plants encompassing various aspects of desert plant biology. In this book, I have tried to present functional and useful aspects of the vegetation resources of deserts along with scienti?c input aimed at understanding and impr- ing the utility of these plants. The scant vegetation of deserts supports animal life and provides many useful medicines, timber and fuel wood for humans. Therefore, there are chapters devoted to medicinal plants (Chap. 1), halophytes (Chaps. 13, 14), and fruit plants (Chaps. 17, 20). Desert plants have a unique reproductive biology (Chaps. 9-11), well-adapted eco-physiological and anatomical charact- istics (Chap. 7), and specialised metabolism and survival abilities. These plants are dif?cult to propagate and pose many problems to researchers developing biote- nological approaches for their amelioration (Chaps. 18-20).

Spis treści

Section A: General biology.- 1 Biodiversity, Biology and conservation of medicinal plants of Thar desert.- Arora J, Goyal S and Ramawat KG.- 2 Potentiality of hydrocarbon yielding plants for future energy and chemicals Kalita D.- 3 Biology and biotechnology advances in Jatropha curcas- A biodiesel plant Reddy MP.- 4 Biology of annual plants in arid and semi-arid desert regions of China Li X.- 5 Soil biology in traditional agroforestry systems of Indian Desert Sundaramoorthy S, Mehar SK, Suthar MS.- 6 Aspects of mycorhizae in desert plants Apple ME.- 7 Anatomical variations in woody plants of arid areas Yang S, Ikiuo F, Jiang Z.- 8 Diversity and conservation in cactus family P. Ortega-Baes et al.- Section B: Reproductive biology.- 9 Reproductive biology of some gum producing Indian desert plants.- Tandon R, Shivanna KR, Mahan Ram HY.-10 Reproductive biology of Cactaceae.- Mandujano MDC, Carillo-Angeles I, Martinez-Peralta C, Golubov J.- 11 Parthenocarpy and seed production in Burseraceae Ramos-Ordonez MF, Marquez-Guzman J, Coro-Arizmendi MD.- Section C: Ecophysiological studies.- 12 Photosynthesis of C 4 desert plants.- Su P.- 13 Polyamines and plant adaptation to saline environment.- Kuznetsov VV, Shevyakova NI.- 14 Ecology of Inland saline plants Kasera PK, Mohammed S.- 15 Ecophysiology of Prosopis species from arid land of Argentina: what do we know about adaptation to stressful environments? Villagra PE, Vilela A, Giordano C, Alvarez JA.- 16 Plant growth inhibitors from mesquite (Prosopis juliflora).- Nakano H.- Section D: Biotechnological studies.- 17 Genetic variation in Tunisian date-palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.).- Rhouma S, Zehdi –Azouzi S,Dakhlaoui-Dkhil S, Ould Mohamed Salem AOB, Othmani A, Cherif E, Marakachi M, Trifi M .- 18 Biology and muliplication of Prosopis species grown in.- Thar Desert.- Raj Bhansali R.- 19 Biotechnology advances in jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis).- Reddy MP, Chikara J.- 20 DatePalm Cultivation in Changing scenario of Indian Arid Zone: Challenges and Prospects.- Raj Bhansali R.- 21 Runoff-rainwater for sustainable desert farming.- Lüttge U.- 22 Biotechnological approaches to aphrodisiac plants of Rajasthan, India .- Jain N, Goyal S, Ramawat KG.