Metabolic Engineering of Plant Secondary Metabolism

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Hermann J. Heege

High yields and environmental control in crop farming call for precise adaptations to local growing conditions. Treating large fields in a uniform way by high capacity machinery cannot be regarded as a sustainable method for many situations. Because differences existing within single fields must be considered. The transition from former field work carried out manually or by small implements to present day high capacity machinery caused that the farmers lost the immediate and close contact with soils and crops. However, modern sensing and controlling technology can make up for this deficit. High tech methods that include proximal sensing and signals from satellites can provide for controls that allow adjusting farming operations to small fractions of one ha and sometimes even down to some m2, hence in a site-specific mode. This applies to operations for soil cultivation, sowing, fertilizing and plant protection. This book deals with concepts, applications and results, and has an interdisciplinary approach that pervades all chapters.

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Donald Pigott

"Lime trees (Tilia spp.) are widely distributed and locally important members of northern temperate broad-leaved forests. In marked contrast to the largely uniform morphology of the genus its taxonomic treatment has become increasingly confused and controversial, with over one hundred species and numerous subspecies described. Using extensive data from field studies of natural populations around the world, this book clarifies the situation, proposing a revised taxonomy of 23 species and 14 subspecies. Detailed descriptions are provided for all recognised taxa and are accompanied by illustrations. Data from herbaria and cultivated trees are used to extend the analyses where appropriate and type specimens are included to stabilise nomenclature. Lime tree ecology is also considered, with an exploration of experimental and analytical data on regeneration, growth and reproduction in relation to climate and soils. Additional material includes a glossary of botanical terms and appendices of herbarium codes and relevant physical concepts"-- "Tilia is the type genus of the family name Tiliaceae Juss. (1789), and T. x europaea L. the type of the generic name (Jarvis et al. 1993). Members of Tiliaceae have many morphological characters in common with those of Malvaceae Juss. (1789) and both families were placed in the order Malvales by Engler (1912). In Engler's treatment, Tiliaceae consisted mainly of trees and shrubs belonging to several genera, including a few herbaceous genera, almost all occurring in the warmer regions. This treatment was revised by Engler and Diels (1936). The family was retained by Cronquist (1981) and consisted of about 50 genera and 700 species distributed in the tropics and warmer parts of the temperate zones in Asia, Africa, southern Europe and America. Several genera of trees, such as Apeiba in South America and Tilia itself, are of economic value for timber, and similarly the herbaceous genus, Corchorus, includes C. olitorius which is grown extensively in Bengal as the source of a brown fibre, jute, used for string, cloth ('hessian'), formerly carpet-backing and paper"--

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Ingolf Bernhardt, J. Clive Ellory

This book describes our current understanding of the transport of ions, amino acids, nucleosides, sugars, water and gases across the red blood cell membrane. It also outlines the necessary theoretical background to understand the dynamics of membrane constituents together with the mechanisms of transport pathways (pumps, channels, carriers/cotransporters, residual passive permeability). Separate chapters describe our present ideas about membrane and metabolic disorders as well as red blood cell diseases like malaria, sickle cell disease, and hypertension. The latest findings are explained on the basis of a historical review and well-established principles. The book and its chapters are thus structured in a manner that makes the material accessible to beginners in the field of red blood cell physiology and biophysics. Active researchers will also benefit from this carefully organized compilation.

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Michael D. Kaplan, Benjamin G. Vekhter

This volume is the <em>first</em> detailed and comprehensive account of the cooperative Jahn-Teller effect-focusing on the qualitative side of the phenomena. In addition to covering all aspects of this phenomena, this well-illustrated volume features a discussion on the recent breakthroughs on how the properties of high-temperature superconductors may influence the cooperative Jahn-Teller effect. Researchers and students working in chemistry will find this volume to be an invaluable addition to their reference collection.