Plant Functional Traits or Microbiomes Associated with Diseases, Pests, Human Activities and Climate Change

Throughout its ~4.5 billion year history, the Earth has experienced periods of warming and cooling. However, the current drastic increase in global temperatures is well outside of the Earth’s cyclic norms, and evidence for human-caused global climate change is compelling. Paleoclimatology, the study of ancient climate conditions, provides ample evidence for human-caused global climate change by comparing recent conditions with those in the past.

When more than one gene is responsible for a given phenotype, the trait is considered polygenic. Human height is a polygenic trait. Studies have uncovered hundreds of loci that influence height, and there are believed to be many more. Due to the high number of genes involved, as well as environmental and nutritional factors, height varies significantly within a given population. The distribution of height forms a bell-shaped curve, with relatively few individuals in the population at the...

The term self-esteem is often used generically, to refer to how people feel about themselves. However, according to research, there are three distinct constructs that should not be used interchangeably (Brown & Marshall, 2006). 

Plant tissue culture is widely used in both primary and applied science. Applications range from plant development studies to functional gene studies, crop improvement, commercial micropropagation, virus elimination, and conservation of rare species.

The Concept of Multiple Allelism

Crop cultivation has a long history in human civilization, with records showing the cultivation of cereal plants beginning at around 8000 BC. This early plant breeding was developed primarily to provide a steady supply of food.