Plant Molecular Evolution

• Section 1: Molecular evolution and phylogenetics: general issues.- Evolution of genes and taxa: a primer.- Examining rates and patterns of nucleotide substitution in plants.- Contributions of plant molecular systematics to studies of molecular evolution.- Section 2: Evolution of gene families and gene functions: case histories.- Molecular evolution of the chalcone synthase multigene family in the morning glory genome.- Myrosinase: gene family evolution and herbivore defense in Brassicaceae.- A short history of MADS-box genes in plants.- Knots in the family tree: evolutionary relationships and functions of knox homeobox genes.- Section 3: The evolution of important phenomena in plants.- Evolutionary genetics of self-incompatibility in the Solanaceae.- The evolution of nodulation.- The evolution of disease resistance genes.- Hybridization, introgression, and linkage evolution.- Genome evolution in polyploids.- Transposable element contributions to plant gene and genome evolution.

'...tantalizing sampler of how two of the main menus of current biological research...can join and produce much richer results. ...this [first of Section 1] article provides one of the best expositions of the essential issues in contemporary molecular systematics...recommend it as required reading for any advanced student of evolutionary biology. The second chapter...contributes an excellent and readable explanation of the basic logical assumptions and statistical methods of likelihood estimation. ...extremely well and clearly written [two chapters in the third section]... Plant Molecular Evolution nicely complements recent contributions... (Soltis et al. 1998)...deserves a place in the library of any plant evolutionary biologist or molecular biologist.' Plant Systematics and Evolution, 226:1-2 (2001)