Biological Nitrogen Fixation for the 21st Century: Proceedings of the 11th International Congress on Nitrogen Fixation, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France, July 20-25 1997 / Edition 1

by Claudine Elmerich, Adam Kondorosi, William E. Newton

Overview

Nitrogen availability is one of the most critical factors that limits plant productivity. The largest reservoir of nitrogen is the atmosphere, but this gaseous molecular nitrogen only becomes available to plants through the biological nitrogen fixation process, which only prokaryotic cells have developed. The discovery that microbes were providing fixed nitrogen to legumes and the isolation of the first nitrogen-fixing bacteria occured at the end the 19th Century, in Louis Pasteur's time. We are now building on more than 100 years of research in this field and looking towards the 21st Century. The International Nitrogen Fixation Congress series Started more than 20 years ago. The format of this Congress is designed to gather scientists from very diverse origins, backgrounds, interests and scientific approaches and is a forum where fundamental knowledge is discussed alongside applied research. This confluence of perspectives is, we believe, extremely beneficial in raising new ideas, questions and concepts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780792348344
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	11/30/1997
Series:	Current Plant Science and Biotechnology in Agriculture , #31
Edition description:	1998
Pages:	708
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.36(d)

Table of Contents

Section I. Chemistry and Biochemistry. Section II. Genetics and Regulation. Genetics and Regulation of Nitrogen Fixation. Cyanobacteria and Photosynthetic Bacteria. Section III. Symbioses and Associations. Rhizobium-Legume Symbiosis. Plant Genetics and Symbiotic Genes. Actinorhizal Symbiosis. Associations with Grasses. Section IV. Environmental and Physiological Factors Controlling Nitrogen Fixation. Carbon Metabolism. Environmental Stress. Section V. Genome Structure, Taxonomy and Ecology. Section VI. Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry. Prospects in Agriculture. Sustainable Agriculture. Forestry. Section VII. Prospects for the 21st Century. Author Index.

Editorial Reviews

Presents summaries of 130 lectures, 350 posters and the comments of the Chairpersons and Conveners from a conference dedicated to examining the role of the nitrogen fixers in maintaining life on earth. Issues discussed include: the improvement of existing nitrogen- fixing symbiotic or associative systems; efforts to extend the nitrogen fixing capacity to other organisms, including transfer of the genetic information for efficient nitrogen fixation into the plant genome and the use of current knowledge of microbe-plant interactions to extend symbiosis to cereals and rice; and related challenges in sustainable agriculture and forestry. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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