Use of Biotechnology in Forestry Breeding Programs for Natural Resources and Biodiversity Conservation: Creating Super Trees for the Future

Owing to the increasing human population and the increasing global demand for wood, its consumption is exceeding the natural rate of regeneration in many areas worldwide. Despite only 3% of the world’s forested land is plantation forest, plantations are highly productive; and with further improvement in genetic composition of planting stock as well as applying biotechnology, additional productivity increases can be obtained. For this reason, it is necessary to enrich traditional breeding programs with biotechnological tools able to increase the quantity and quality of the forestry plants produced. FAO’s definition of forest biotechnology encompasses different techniques for cloning forest trees. Forestry companies are currently considering clonal propagation as a good source of forestry plants. Clonal propagation can be achieved by various means: grafting, rooting of cuttings, coppicing, or in vitro propagation. Several methods of clonal propagation are being practiced with conifers. Along this chapter, a summary of some of the different approaches to improve Pinus spp. clonal propagation will be described, particularly those made in our laboratory

Multivariate locally stationary 2D wavelet processes with application to colour texture analysis

In this article we propose a novel framework for the modelling of non-stationary multivariate lattice processes. Our approach extends the locally stationary wavelet paradigm into the multivariate two-dimensional setting. As such the framework we develop permits the estimation of a spatially localised spectrum within a channel of interest and, more importantly, a localised cross-covariance which describes the localised coherence between channels. Associated estimation theory is also established which demonstrates that this multivariate spatial framework is properly defined and has suitable convergence properties. We also demonstrate how this model-based approach can be successfully used to classify a range of colour textures provided by an industrial collaborator, yielding superior results when compared against current state-of-the-art statistical image processing methods

Stress Modulation in Pinus spp. Somatic Embryogenesis as Model for Climate Change Mitigation: Stress Is Not Always a Problem

Climate change is leading to higher temperatures and lower precipitation; this fact can have a negative impact on plant performance and survival. Latest findings have revealed that the conditions in which zygotic embryogenesis takes place have an impact on the adaptive capacity of the resulting plants. Somatic embryogenesis provides us a potent biotechnological tool to manipulate the physical and chemical conditions (water availability) along the process and to study their effect in the final success of the process in terms of quantity and quality of somatic plants produced. The development of somatic cells to somatic plantlets comprises three stages: induction of embryonal masses, maturation of embryogenic tissues, and conversion into somatic plants. Our experience in somatic embryogenesis in Pinus spp. enables us to explore the possibility to modulate the quality in terms of abiotic stress tolerance of somatic plants modifying environmental conditions during the initial stages of the process. Our results have shown that the modification of environmental conditions affected not only the success of the process in some species of pines but also the water use efficiency of the somatic plants after several months in ex vitro conditions. In the chapter, we will show the different responses obtained in all the stages of the somatic embryogenesis process as well as the response obtained after drought periods in plants growing in the greenhouse under ex vitro conditions.3A1A-5397-3230 | Jorge Canhotoinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio