PDF

34898_7mcq055.pdf

Book Reviews

Annals of Botany105: viii-xi,

Available online at www.aob.oxfordjournals.org

doi:10.1093/aob/mcq054

Published electronically: 17 March 2010

Signaling in plants

Baluska F, Mancuso S. eds. 2009.

Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-

Verlag. £135 (hardback). 308 pp.

This book provides detailed

coverage of a wide range of aspects of signalling and emphasizes the critical importance of such signalling to plants, which as sessile organisms are at the mercy of their biotic and abiotic environment. The book provides insight into how plants can respond and overcome such challenges. The dynamism of plant signalling pathways are clearly demonstrated, for example in cell wall composition, in which mutants are described that result in different wall compositions and relative amounts of wall components can be altered, indicating a sensing-and-response network to this pathway. The book breaks plant cells down into their varying components and provides individual chapters describing how different aspects of the cell relate to whole-plant physiology. This provides the reader with the opportunity to focus on specific aspects of signalling, or to get to grips with various aspects in manageable pieces. Given that the book fragments the different signalling mechanisms into ‘bite-sized pieces" it also achieves good integration of these pieces. The authors link very well between the different chapters with citations of relevant sections from other chapters covering related topics. This makes following links between different responses and stimuli easier. Chapters are included that provide detailed analysis of specific signalling molecules, with particular focus paid to auxin and calcium, and they also cover situations where per- ception of changing environments are critical, such as tropic responses and stress responses. The fundamental role of auxin is described in a number of chapters. This is particu- larly evident in the chapter focusing on the specific role of auxin signalling, for example the role of auxin associated with modifications to the cell wall and gravitropism. The book provides a valuable perspective to the dynamic nature of plants. It clearly demonstrates the complexity of the response networks and shows how plants are able to respond to the changing environments they face, both on a daily and seasonal basis, but also under conditions of stress, including pathogen attack, oxygen deprivation and also in symbiotic associations, such as with rhizobial bacteria. The book also provides a good perspective on how differ- ent aspects of cells interact with each other, and the dyna- mism of the actin cytoskeleton in accommodating growth and development is an excellent example of this. This chapter illustrates how the actin cytoskeleton serves as a sig-

nalling hub that regulates numerous activities, such assubcellular compartmentation, organelle and vesicle mobility

and structural reinforcement. The book provides an excellent historical perspective to signalling in plants; this is put into context with recent devel- opments and the use of molecular genetic analysis to confirm hypotheses that were made by physiological observations. In addition, most of the chapters also discuss recent develop- ments and provide observations on where the key targets for future research currently are. This provides the reader with a focused outlook on how the fields are developing and what are the major questions that can be addressed with the new post-genomics tools. The illustrations are of high quality; although some chap- ters have only a limited number of figures and pathways included, these provide valuable information and aid the reader in understanding the complex interactions and path- ways that are being discussed. Overall this volume provides a very focused discussion of key topics of plant signalling and provides the reader with good opportunities to follow the specific areas in more detail. It will serve as an excellent resource for advanced graduate students and post-graduates who wish to obtain a detailed insight into plant cell signalling.

Zoe A. Wilson

E-mailzoe.wilson@nottingham.ac.uk

doi:10.1093/aob/mcq055 Published electronically: 9 April 2010Botany. An introduction to plant biology, 4th edn

Mauseth JD. 2009.

Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.

$135.95 (hardback). 672 pp.

James D. Mauseth"s exceptional text

Botany: an introduction to plant

biologyis now released in its fourth edition. The content is divided into four main sections: Plant Structure;

Plant Physiology and Development;

Genetics and Evolution; and

Ecology. Within these sections,

standard topics such as cell structure, cell division, plant morphology, plant physiology and diversity are given thorough coverage. Each chapter explores the subject matter in extensive detail providing a number of standard as well as interesting new examples to illustrate the different botanical concepts presented. The text is supported by a number of excellent photographs, diagrams and other graphics. Within the chapters, there are interesting box essays called ‘Plants Do Things Differently" that highlight the unique features of plant biology and contrast plants with aspects of animal biology that are probably more familiar to students. Essays called ‘Alternatives" describe variation among species in

viiiDownloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/105/5/viii/180955 by guest on 16 August 2023

fundamental aspects of plant biology. ‘Plants and People" essays provide interesting insights on the numerous interactions and links between humans and the botanical world. These boxes present useful vignettes that should help students better understand and appreciate the importance of plants ecologically, culturally, scientifically and economically. The content of the book is thorough and presents an accu- rate overview of modern understanding about and perspec- tives on plants; however, this thorough coverage of individual topics is one of the drawbacks of the book. At times, the writing can be dense and may potentially be diffi- cult for some students to follow. This aspect of the book perhaps makes it a better choice for an advanced level or possibly an honours course in botany rather than for a general introductory botany course with mixed majors and non-majors. Another difficulty is that although the book con- tains numerous useful illustrations and graphics, there are some in which it is difficult to differentiate structures due to the similarity of colours in the diagrams. These palette problems may make it especially difficult for students to dis- tinguish among important points in projected images. Perhaps these less-distinct illustrations are from previous edi- tions while more brightly coloured figures are new additions. The book covers all of the essential topics, but it does seem that the ecology section is somewhat lacking. It contains only two chapters: one chapter is a standard coverage of biomes and the other is a combination of populations and ecosys- tems. Coverage of plant community ecology is noticeably missing. Likewise, it seems odd that there are no chapters that specifically address topics of plant biotechnology, plant conservation, biofuels or agriculture. Given the importance of these topics and the wealth of information that exists about them, it is unfortunate that their only coverage comes in the boxed essays mentioned above. Hopefully future edi- tions will expand coverage to include these topics. In summary, there are some minor issues with this book. However, Mauseth"sBotanyis overall a very good book and provides a worthy title for instructors of introductory botany courses to consider. While it can clearly serve as the primary text for a general botany course, it could also poten- tially be used as a supporting text for other courses as well.

Phil Gibson

E-mailjpgibson@ou.edu

doi:10.1093/aob/mcq056

Published electronically: 17 March 2010

Plant structure. A colour guide,

2nd edn

Bowes BG, Mauseth JD. 2008.

London: Manson Publishing.

£29.95 (paperback). 288 pp.

I regularly - and (I hope) rightly -

bemoan the lack of plant anatomical knowledge of modern-day biology graduates, so it"s always good to see books that try to remedy that deficiency!

Expectations were accordingly

high when I receivedPlantstructureby Bowes and Mauseth (hereafter referred to as

B&M2e) to review.

AlthoughB&M2eis fairly conservative in terms of content of its eight chapters, this is largely inevitable; there is a stan- dard set of topics that are fundamental to plant anatomy that all books that aspire to deliver on the subject ought to contain. Each chapter begins with a short introductory text that summarizes the main features of the chapter"s subject. And this is done with admirable succinctness. Briefly, the contents are: Chapter 1, Introduction, which sets the theme for the atlas and covers such topics as the variety of land plants, transpiration and translocation in vascular plants, general morphology of angiosperms (the book is largely con- cerned with flowering plant anatomy), floral and reproductive features. Chapter 2, The Plant Cell, is an introduction to plant cell ultrastructure. Chapter 3, Plant Histology, considers cells and tissues of the primary and secondary plant body (this and all subsequent chapters contain images almost solely at the light-microscope, LM, level, the primary level of inquiry of the book). After Chapter 4, Apical Meristems, there follow chapters dedicated to the major organs of the vegetative plant body: 5, The Green Leaf; 6, The Stem; and 7, The Root. The anatomical survey is concluded with Chapter 8 on Plant Reproduction. A selected bibliography, glossary and index complete the book. Perhaps the most telling comparison ofB&M2eis with the book"s 2004 first edition (1e), which was sole-authored by

Bowes. Many of the figures inB&M2eare the same as

those in the1e(and why not? They are generally very good images, but do actually look even better inB&M2e!). However, there are nearly 200 more images inB&M2e, which is the main reason why it has almost 100 more pages than1e. Both editions have eight chapters and, except for Chapter 8, the same titles; Chapter 8 is termed

Plant Reproduction inB&M2e- rather than Sexual

Reproduction - because it has been expanded to include asexual propagation methods. Whilst the text in both editions is largely the same, it has been considerably supplemented in many places inB&M2e, e.g. approx. 2.5 pages on leaf modi- fications in Chapter 6 (although this may not sound much, since the text of a chapter inB&M2eis only approx. 6.25 pages this represents a substantial increase). And there are also new sections dealing with mangroves, succulent roots, parasitic plants and ant-plants in Chapter 7. As one might expect from Mauseth"s involvement, there are a lot of cactus images inB&M2e(and yes! anatomy of cactus spines is one of the new items on leaf modification in Chapter 5). The bibliography, glossary and index are also all larger inB&M2e. Inevitably in such a volume, attention focuses on the images. And here is where I have a big problem with B&M2e. Notwithstanding how stunning and beautiful the images are (which they are and for which full credit is rightly and richly deserved), they suffer from a massive fun- damental flaw: nowhere are scale bars provided for any image, nor even an indication of the magnification (which latter basic information was provided in1e). Why is this essential information not provided? Not only is its omission baffling and bizarre, it seriously undermines any value the text has as an aid to teaching plant anatomy! B&M2ecompares well with other recent LM-based plant anatomical texts, such as Petersonet al.(2008) andCutler et al.(2008; although both of these have accompanying CDs with digital versions of the book"s images - which ixDownloaded from https://academic.oup.com/aob/article/105/5/viii/180955 by guest on 16 August 2023