Plant genomics: sowing the seeds of success

Abstract

Th e exquisite beauty of plants and their fundamental importance to life on Earth has captivated scientists throughout history. During antiquity, Th eophrastus began the systematic characterization of plants according to Aristotle’s principles of taxonomy. Centuries later, Mendel’s studies of the inheritance of traits in pea plants founded the fiof genetics, and much of Darwin’s work on the evolution of forms by natural selection was supported by experiments on plants. By 2000, the seeds of success were sown in the fiof plant genomics with the sequencing of the genome of Arabidopsis thaliana [1], a ubiquitous weed that was adopted as the plant model species in the 1990s due to its many desirable traits, such as a short generation time, small diploid genome, and self­compatibility. Prior to this adoption of Arabidopsis as a model species, studying a panoply of agronomically and economically important species, such as maize, rice, tomato, petunia and snapdragon, had been favored. Th e burgeoning worldwide human population means the pressure to produce sustainable quantities of food and fuel crops, across a relatively constant land area, has never been higher. To improve yields of crops, it will be imperative to understand the genetic mechanisms con­ trolling traits of interest, and genomics approaches will be vital to achieve this. Th us, with the topic of plant genomics at an unprecedented level of importance, we feel it is pertinent to highlight the best of plant research in a special issue.