Plant Virus Evolution

This book provides a comprehensive look at the field of plant virus evolution. Individual chapters, written by experts in the field, cover plant virus ecology, emerging viruses, plant viruses that integrate into the host genome, population biology, evolutionary mechanisms and appropriate methods for analysis. It covers RNA viruses, DNA viruses, pararetroviruses and viroids. The book summarizes the recent advances in our understanding of genetic bottlenecks, mutation rates and RNA recombination. It presents a number of ideas that are thought-provoking and make excellent discussion points. It is rounded out by a description of the history of plant virus evolution studies, and the link between evolution and taxonomy. Plant Virus Evolution provides an invaluable resource for researchers, teachers and students in the fields of plant virology and virus evolution.