cgi-bin/about/about_solanaceae.pl

   1 use strict;
   2 use CXGN::Page;
   3 my $page=CXGN::Page->new('about_solanaceae.html','html2pl converter');
   4 $page->header('About The Solanaceae family');
   5 print<<END_HEREDOC;
   6
   7   <center>
   8
   9
  10     <table summary="" width="720" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"
  11     border="0">
  12       <tr>
  13         <td>
  14           <center>
  15             <h2>About the Solanaceae Family</h2>
  16           </center>
  17         </td>
  18       </tr>
  19
  20       <tr>
  21         <td>
  22           <center>
  23             <img src="/documents/img/solanaceae-image-small.jpg" border="0"
  24             alt="types of solanaceae" />
  25           </center>
  26
  27 <p>The Solanaceae, also called nightshades,
  28           comprise more than 3000 species many of which evolved in
  29           the Andean/Amazonian regions of South America in habitats
  30           that vary dramatically and include rain forests that
  31           receive more than 3 meters of rainfall annually to
  32           deserts with virtually no rainfall and high mountains
  33           with regular snowfall and subfreezing temperatures.</p>
  34
  35           <p>The center of diversity of the Solanaceae is near the
  36           equator and thus species were undisturbed by the ice ages
  37           and have had time to accumulate adaptive genetic
  38           variation for extreme ecological niches. The Solanaceae
  39           are also the third most important plant taxon
  40           economically and the most valuable in terms of vegetable
  41           crops, and are the most variable of crops species in
  42           terms of agricultural utility, as it includes the
  43           tuber-bearing potato, a number of fruit-bearing
  44           vegetables (tomato, eggplant, peppers), ornamental plants
  45           (petunias, Nicotiana), plants with edible leaves (Solanum
  46           aethiopicum, S. macrocarpon) and medicinal plants (eg.
  47           Datura, Capsicum).</p>
  48
  49           <p>Solanaceaous crops have been subjected to intensive
  50           human selection, allowing their use as models to study
  51           the evolutionary interface between plants and people. The
  52           ancient mode of Solanaceae evolution, coupled with an
  53           exceptionally high level of conservation of genome
  54           organization at the macro and micro levels make the
  55           family a model to explore the basis of phenotypic
  56           diversity and adaptation to natural and agricultural
  57           environments.</p>
  58
  59           <p>Some Solanaceae plants are important model systems for
  60           biology; these include tomato for fruit ripening and
  61           plant defense, tobacco for plant defense, and petunia for
  62           the biology of anthocyanin pigments.</p>
  63
  64           <p>Recently, the phylogenetic classification of the
  65           Solanaceae has been <a href=
  66           "solanum_nomenclature.pl">revised</a>. The genus
  67           Lycopersicon was re-integrated into the Solanum genus, as
  68           had been the case in Linnaeus' classification.</p>
  69
  70           <p>Today, the <a href=
  71           "/solanaceae-project/index.pl">International SOL project</a>
  72           attempts to study the basis of diversity and adaptation
  73           in the Solanaceae as a model for biology. One of the
  74           cornerstones of the SOL project is the sequencing of the
  75           complete euchromatic region of the tomato genome.</p>
  76
  77           <h4>Solanaceae phylogenetic tree</h4>
  78
  79 <p>Below is an overview
  80           of the phylogeny of the Solanaceae (incl. coffee), kindly
  81           provided by Feinan Wu, based on Bohs and Olmstead,
  82           (1997).</p>
  83
  84           <center>
  85             <img src="/documents/img/SOL_tree.png" alt=
  86             "phylogeny of the Solanaceae" />
  87           </center>
  88
  89           <h4>Further documents</h4>
  90
  91           <ul>
  92             <li><a href="solanum_nomenclature.pl">An overview of
  93             changes in the Solanum nomenclature</a>. Kindly
  94             provided by Prof Sandra Knapp of the Natural History
  95             Museum, London, UK.</li>
  96             <li>Links to other Solanaceae resources are provided on
  97             our <a href=
  98             "/community/links/related_sites.pl">Solanaceae
  99             links</a> page.</li>
 100             <li>An analysis of <a href="/misc/codon_usage/codon_usage.pl">codon usage</a> for Tomato and potato including codon usuage tables.</li>
 101           </ul>
 102
 103           <h4>References</h4>
 104
 105 <p>Bohs L., Olmstead R. G. (1997)
 106           Phylogenetic relationships in Solanum (Solanaceae) based
 107           on ndhF sequences. Syst. Bot. 22: 5-17.</p>
 108
 109
 110           </td>
 111       </tr>
 112     </table>
 113   </center>
 114 END_HEREDOC
 115 $page->footer();