Special Issue "Assessment of Plant Genetic Diversity"

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Mario A. Pagnotta
Dipartimento di AgroBiologia e AgroChimica, Universita' della Tuscia, Via S.C. de Lellis, 01100 Viterbo, Italy
E-Mail:
Interests: plant population genetics; plant evolution and domestication; in situ and ex situ conservation of plant germplasm; molecular characterization; molecular markers; molecular evolution; plant breeding

Dear Colleagues,

Convention on the Biological Diversity and the Pan-European Biological and Landscape Diversity Strategy define biodiversity as the variety of life and its processes. Biodiversity is generally recognized on three levels:
· Genetic diversity - the variety of genetic building blocks found among individual representatives of a species;
· Species diversity – the variety of living organisms found in a particular place;
· Ecosystem diversity - the variety of species and ecological functions and processes, both their kind and number, that occur in different physical settings.

In this Diversity’s special issue we focus on the first level “genetic diversity” restricting it to the Plant aspects since the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources are essential to the sustainable development of agricultural production. Plant genetic resources comprise the diversity of genetic material contained in traditional varieties and modern cultivars, as well as crop wild relatives and other wild plant species that can be used, now or in the future, for food and agriculture, including resources which contribute to people’s livelihoods by providing food, medicine, feed for domestic animals, fibre, clothing, shelter, energy and a multiple of other products and services.

In this special issue will be published contributions assessing the genetic diversity in Plant species as well as contributions focusing on the aspect connected with this such as statistical methods and tools used.

Mario A. Pagnotta
Guest Editor

Related Journal

• Genes - an Open Access journal of genetics and genomics.

Submission Information

All manuscripts should be submitted to diversity@mdpi.org with a copy to the Guest Editor. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Diversity is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI.

For the first two issues, to be published in 2009 and 2010, the Article Processing Charges (APC) will be waived for well-prepared manuscripts. English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.