Genetic and Morphological Diversity in Plants
A Special Issue of Genes (ISSN 2073-4425) belonging to the section "Plant Genetics and Genomics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 October 2026 | Viewed by 9727
Editor
Interests: genetic variation; morphological variation; classical taxonomy; massively parallel sequencing ASKDF; lasjf; molecular systematics; species identification; biodiversity; evolutionary biology; phylogeny; conservation; phylogenetic diversity; molecular; biodiversity assessment; Pediomelum
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
From genes to species, biodiversity is the great variation within and among all forms of life on Earth, and it is vital to the health and conservation of nature. Plants depend on large and heterogeneous gene pools for future adaptations to changing environments. These genetic resources are enhanced in plants by unique reproductive strategies such as outcrossing, hybridization, and polyploidization, but these features can make it difficult for researchers to characterize plant diversity. Genes manifest into morphotypes, but environmental factors and conditions can influence labile phenotypes. Morphological variation within and among populations of plant species may result from genetic variation, from varying environmental factors, or from a combination of both. Furthermore, understanding genetic and morphological diversity in plants is important for many reasons: (1) conserving healthy ecosystems and natural resources for ecosystem services such as air, water, and soil health, climate stabilization, pollination, and for the quality of recreational, cultural, and aesthetic landscapes; (2) controlling or eradicating invasive species; (3) predicting how a species may respond to a changing climate; (4) bioprospecting; (5) determining taxonomic identities or resolving taxonomic conflicts; and (6) informing crop improvement and plant breeding programs by enhancing germplasm resources and other genetic resources and identifying genotypes that result in desirable phenotypes. Currently, research is focused on investigating these topics via proven classical techniques to characterize morphologies using morphometrics and the principle component analysis (PCA) of quantitative traits and for genotyping and molecular profiling using inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSRs), random amplified polymorphism DNA (RAPD), and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) fingerprinting. Additionally, many studies employ state-of-the-art, high-throughput sequencing for simple sequence repeat (SSR; microsatellite) analysis or double-digest restriction site-associated DNA (ddRADseq) to assess the genetic structure of a population.
This Special Issue aims to provide a collection of articles highlighting current investigations that utilize and/or elucidate the links between genetic and morphological variation in plants and the numerous reasons why understanding this connection is important.
Dr. P. Roxanne Kellar
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- biodiversity
- conservation
- genetic structure
- genetics
- genotype
- germplasm
- haplotype
- high-throughput sequencing
- invasive species
- microsatellites
- molecular markers
- morphological characters
- morphology
- morphometrics
- morphotype
- next-generation sequencing
- phenotype
- systematics
- taxonomy
- variation
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