Preface

Nobody knows when and where plants were used for the first time by human beings. Plants were used for food, fire, forage and even for medicinal purposes since prehistoric times. Plants have an entire kingdom of life forms, and are the most essential group of organisms in our world. Without plants, all other forms of life would cease to exist. When humans started building colonies and getting civilized their dependency on plants increased by several folds. Today plants are even more important due to their increased demand of for their different uses.

Research in plant sciences has a significant role to play in many wide areas including agriculture, energy, and environmental stewardship. Today we are dealing with an urgent issue on how to feed the growing world population. With increased and effective plant science research we can develop methods to provide sustainable food supply towards fulfillment of the increased food demand. Second issue is related to the rapidly changing environment leading to deterioration of natural resources and increased global warming. With advancements in plant sciences we can explore how plants can cope with less water, rising temperatures, and other environmental stresses. Plant science research can enable scientists to develop crops that can withstand changing climate conditions alongside of increased productivity. We really need to think today how plants can contribute as environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable sources of energy?

In past decade plant science research has flourished in many different and newer areas e.g. plant genetics, genomics, molecular biology, epigenetics and proteomics. This broadened research has augmented our knowledge to understand plants better than before. With the help of several new concepts and powerful strategies like Marker Assisted Selection (MAS), LD mapping, Association mapping, Gene cloning, Radiation hybrid mapping, RNA interference, TILLING, Expression Genetics, and Genome sequencing of model plants, we are now able to improve and think of efficient and different uses of plants.

This multi authored edited eBook “Frontiers on Recent Developments in Plant Science” is an attempt to put forth a compilation of work in various areas of plant science of several scientists and post-doctoral fellows across the world, all well known, distinguished and experts in different frontiers of plant science research. This eBook is an effort to gather the successes achieved in areas of plant genetics, molecular biology and breeding aspects across all the major continents. The chief objective of the eBook hence is to deliver state of the art knowledge, information to comprehend the advancement of plant science research to its readers.