Crop Systems Biology

The Work is an interdisciplinary research approach, combining modern genetics and genomics, traditional physiology and biochemistry, and advanced bioinformatics and crop modelling. It is a rapidly developing field and this book is testimony to its dynamic evolution. It provides examples of how gene regulatory and metabolic networks are included, in a spatially and temporally specific manner, in multi-scale crop modelling and how functional-structural plant modelling in combination with quantitative trait loci analysis is used to advance breeding for architectural traits. It also illustrates how prediction accuracy can profit from the large data sets available on environmental and genotypic variables by integrating physiological and statistical knowledge, and how in silico profiling can be used to unravel genotype × environment × management interactions, to analyse trade-offs between different crop characteristics or to assess yield benefits of specific traits. The Work also demonstrates very contrasting crop types that crop ecophysiology and functional modelling can assist in linking organizational scales, closing the genotype-to-phenotype gap, designing ideotypes for specific environments, evaluating suitability of specific environments for certain genotypes, and supporting model-assisted molecular breeding.

This book will appeal to those interested in bridging fundamental plant biology and applied crop science using a diversity of systems modelling approaches.