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Plant taxonomy is an ancient discipline facing new challenges with the current availability of a vast array of molecular approaches which allow reliable genealogy-based classifications. Although the primary focus of plant taxonomy is on the delimitation of species, molecular approaches also provide a better understanding of evolutionary processes, a particularly important issue for some taxonomic complex groups. Molecular Plant Taxonomy: Methods and Protocols describes laboratory protocols based on the use of nucleic acids and chromosomes for plant taxonomy, as well as guidelines for phylogenetic analysis of molecular data. Experts in the field also contribute review and application chapters that will encourage the reader to develop an integrative taxonomy approach, combining nucleic acid and cytogenetic data together with other crucial information (taxonomy, morphology, anatomy, ecology, reproductive biology, biogeography, paleobotany), which will help not only to best circumvent species delimitation but also to resolve the evolutionary processes in play. Written in the successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible protocols, and notes on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls.
Authoritative and easily accessible, Molecular Plant Taxonomy: Methods and Protocols seeks to provide conceptual as well as technical guidelines to plant taxonomists and geneticists.

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1. Plant Taxonomy: An Historical Perspective, Current Challenges and Perspectives

Germinal Rouhan and Myriam Gaudeul

2. Guidelines for the Choice of Sequences for Molecular Plant Taxonomy

Pascale Besse

3. Leaf Tissue Sampling and DNA Extraction Protocols

Kassa Semagn

4. DNA Extraction from Herbarium Specimens

Lenka Záveská Drábková

5. Analysis of Variation in Chloroplast DNA Sequences

Berthold Heinze, Agnieszka Koziel-Monte, and Daniela Jahn

6. Mitochondrial Genome and Plant Taxonomy

Jérôme Duminil

7. Nuclear Ribosomal RNA Genes: ITS Region

Pascale Besse

8. New Technologies for Ultra-High Throughput Genotyping in Plant Taxonomy

David Edwards, Manuel Zander, Jessica Dalton-Morgan, and Jacqueline Batley

9. Development of Microsatellite Enriched Libraries

Hélène Vignes and Ronan Rivallan

10. Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and Derived Techniques

K. Nirmal Babu, M. K. Rajesh, K. Samsudeen, Divakaran Minoo, E. J. Suraby, K. Anupama, and Paul Ritto

11. Multilocus Profiling with AFLP, ISSR and SAMPL

Luis F. Goulao and Cristina M. Oliveira

12. Transposon Based Tagging: IRAP, REMAP and iPBS

Ruslan Kalendar and Alan H. Schulman

13. Phylogenetic Reconstruction Methods: An Overview

Alexandre De Bruyn, Darren P. Martin, and Pierre Lefeuvre

14. The Application of Flow Cytometry for Estimating Genome Size and Ploidy Level in Plants

Jaume Pellicer and Ilia J. Leitch

15. Molecular Cytogenetics (FISH and Flurochrome Banding): Resolving Species Relationships and Genome Organisation

Sonja Siljak-Yakovlev, Fatima Pustahija, Vedrana Vicic, and Odile Robin

16. GISH: Resolving Interspecific and Intergeneric Hybrids

Nathalie Piperidis

17. On the Relevance of Molecular Tools for the Taxonomy Revision in Malvales, Malvaceae s.l. and Dombeyoideae

Timothée Le Péchon and Luc D. B. Gigord

18. What Has Molecular Systematics Contributed to Our Knowledge of the Plant Family Proteaceae?

Peter Weston

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