Bryophytes were a pivotal step in land plant evolution, and their significance in the regulation of ecosystems and the conservation of biodiversity is becoming increasingly acknowledged. This introductory textbook assumes no prior knowledge of bryophyte biology, making it ideal for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, as well as amateur botanists. The authors expertly summarise the diversity of bryophytes and outline recent advances in our understanding of their evolutionary histo...

Bryophyte Biology provides an extensive overview of the hornworts, liverworts, and mosses; diverse groups of land plants that occupy a great variety of habitats throughout the world. This edition covers essential aspects of bryophyte biology, from morphology, physiological ecology and conservation, to speciation, and genomics. Revised classifications incorporate contributions from recent phylogenetic studies. Six new chapters complement fully updated chapters from the original book to prov...

"Makes the science of plant processes accessible to home gardeners." — The American GardenerWhy do container plants wilt even when they've been regularly watered? Why did the hydrangea that thrived last year never bloom this year? Plant physiology—the study of how living things function—can solve these and most other problems gardeners regularly encounter. In How Plants Work, horticulture expert Linda Chalker-Scott brings the stranger-than-fiction ...

What are plant galls and how are they caused? This book introduces the Australian native insects that induce galls on plants and the plant species that host them. It explores the ways the insects have adapted to living part of their lives in the confined spaces of galls, and describes the strategies employed by different insect groups to find a suitable site to induce a gall, obtain food, mate and escape the gall. Life in a Gall also looks at the predators, parasitoids, inquilines, kleptopara...

Diseases of Vegetable Crops in Australia provides a diagnostic guide and a key reference for diseases affecting vegetable crops in Australia. This is an extensively revised and expanded edition of a previous publication that was a standard reference for the Australian vegetable industry. Authors from across Australia provide essential information about the important diseases affecting most vegetable grown across Australia’s diverse horticultural production areas. The book includes an account ...

Wetland Habitats is a practical and easy to use manual for wetland restoration and conservation of diverse animal species. Covering all the recent work in this field, among other significant issues it discusses making the most of dams and created wetlands; reversing the effects of drainage, grazing, weirs, deteriorating water quality, and associated algal problems; captive breeding and reintroduction; and controlling weeds and vermin. The book describes a range of potential problems encounter...

This beautifully illustrated field guide covers 504 of the most common fruiting plants found in Australia's eastern rainforests, as well as a few species that are rare in the wild but generally well-known. These spectacular plants can be seen from Cape York to Victoria, with some species also found in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and overseas. Rainforest fruits are often beautifully coloured, and in this guide the species are arranged by colour of ripe fruit, then by size and for...

While there is enormous public interest in biodiversity, food sourcing, and sustainable agriculture, romantic attachments to heirloom seeds and family farms have provoked misleading fantasies of an unrecoverable agrarian past. The reality, as Courtney Fullilove shows, is that seeds are inherently political objects transformed by the ways they are gathered, preserved, distributed, regenerated, and improved. In The Profit of the Earth, Fullilove unearths the history of American agri...

Biological control of weeds has been practised for over 100 years and Australia has been a leader in this weed management technique. The classical example of control of prickly pears in Australia by the cactus moth Cactoblastis cactorum, which was imported from the Americas, helped to set the future for biocontrol of weeds in many countries. Since then there have been many projects using Classical Biological Control to manage numerous weed species, many of which have been successful. Importan...

No other single volume reference to the Jehol site and its fossils exists and nowhere is there such a collection of fine photos of the fossils concerned. This book has pieced together the most up-to-date information on the Jehol Biota, a place that has shown the world some of the most astonishing fossil finds including the first complete skeleton of Archaeopteryx in 1861, four-winged dinosaurs- many feathered ones, the first beaked bird, the first plants with flowers and fruits, and thousa...

This field guide will enable the identification of a range of invasive plants and animals now found in Britain.The impact of invasive organisms is second only to habitat loss as a threat to biodiversity and yet, despite increasing ecological awareness, people remain largely unaware of these plants and animals and their potentially devastating impact. Although most biological introductions fail, many prove successful and these can prove disastrous for native fauna a...

This monograph aims at bringing out a comprehensive collection of information on bamboo varieties in South Asia. The main focus of this book is to address the ecological and economic significance of bamboos.Bamboo is a versatile group of plants, capable of providing ecological, economic and livelihood security to the people. In the tropics, especially the rural areas in different countries of South Asia, most of the houses are made of bamboos. In the hilly areas of Bangladesh, Bhut...