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Résumé :
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Biodiversity conservation is a global imperative especially in relation to forests, the most biologically diverse terrestrial ecosystems. Pressures on forest resources are severe and the need to provide a scientific basis for conservation-oriented management is clear. Along with ecological considerations, genetics has a major role to play in the design and implementation of species-based conservation strategies if both short- and long-term goals of effective resource management and maintenance of evolutionary flexibility are to be achieved. Indeed, their variable geographic distributions, range of mating and dispersal systems and the wide variety of stresses to which they are subjected (e.g. pollution, logging, fragmentation) make forest trees paradigms of genetic conservation. Despite the importance of the subject, the magnitude and imminence of the threats, and a burgeoning scientific literature fueled partly by rapid advances in genetic marker technologies, there is no comprehensive reference text that draws together the principles of forest conservation genetics. As a result relatively little information on conservation genetics is reaching forest scientists, managers and policy makers so that it can be translated into practice. The aim of this text is to introduce readers with a wide variety of backgrounds to the principles and practice of forest conservation genetics through a series of chapters dealing with: genetic principles and basic genetic processes, genetic threats to forest species, the effects of domestication and restoration on forest gene pools and the interactions between genetics and socio-economics as they relate to formation of forest policy. We have also included in this book, as a CD-ROM, the population genetics analysis software package POPGENE, developed by Drs Francis Yeh, Timothy Boyle and RongcaiYang. This cornputer package provides readers with a hands- on tool for the analysis and interpretation of a wide range of genetic data.
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