Rodomiro Ortiz

Plant diversity sustains all animal life, and the genetic diversity within plants underpins global food security. This text provides a practical and theoretical introduction to the strategies and actions to adopt for conserving plant genetic variation, as well as explaining how humans can exploit this diversity for sustainable development. Notably readable, it initially offers current knowledge on the characterization and evaluation of plant genetic resources. The authors then discuss strategies from in situ and ex situ conservation to crop breeding, exploring how these can be used to improve food security in the face of increasing agrobiodiversity loss, human population growth and climate change. Each chapter draws on examples from the literature or the authors' research and includes further reading references. Containing other useful features such as a glossary, it is invaluable for professionals and undergraduate and graduate students in plant sciences, ecology, conservation, genetics and natural resource management.

The need to understand the genetic diversity of plants has become a crucial part of conservation efforts, in part, because plants provide us with much of our food, construction materials, medicines and many other products. The authors of this book introduce essential theories and techniques needed to describe plant genetic diversity and explain how this data can be used to plan conservation strategies and implement sustainable exploitation of plant resources.