Both community gardens and self-built structures are created in a participatory design and self-built effort by urban residents and are an expression of the individual gardeners??? preferences, their cultural background and the decisions made by the managing residents??? group in regards to the needs of their neighborhood. Ultimately community gardens with self-built structures are an expression of the people???s will to commonly use this land for open and enclosed structures next to their homes in the city and need to be included in future urban planning.

The most distinctive features of this book as well as future titles is/will be to provide overview of cutting-edge research in the field of plant structural biology, and to serve as a compendium of various approaches that could be applied to problems being solved in modern plant biology. Last but not least, we hope this book will facilitate and broaden the community of (not only) plant scientists who are interested in structural biology approaches and tools. For these reasons, the style of this series is concise and general, in order to avoiding unnecessary details. Explanatory boxes describing the basics of specific approaches (e.g. X-ray crystallography, NMR, SAXS, molecular dynamics simulations, etc.) are included.

The wildlife on the Galapagos Islands today represents one of the best-preserved wild communities of plants and animals in the world, owing to the location of the islands at the intersection of major ocean currents, the commitment by Ecuador for the vast majority of the area to be left undeveloped, and the protection provided by the Galapagos National Park. Most of the animal species in Galapagos are endemic, occurring nowhere else. But they are descendants of ancestors that colonized earlier, and then, isolated from their mainland origins, evolved into forms that are recognized as distinct today. Since 2001, many of the authors of this book have been part of a four-institution partnership investigating the threats posed by pathogens to Galapagos avifauna. They approach the topic of disease ecology in a novel manner, starting with the history of arrival of both the birds themselves and the pathogens. This synthetic approach requires the integration of themes from veterinary medicine, epidemiology, population genetics, and phylogenetics.

Their toxicity has pronounced effects and consequences for plants and ultimately the whole ecosystem. Plants growing in nanomaterials-polluted sites may exhibit altered metabolism, growth reduction, and lower biomass production. Nanoparticles can adhere to plant roots and exert physicochemical toxicity and subsequently cell death in plants. On the other hand, plants have developed various defense mechanisms against this induced toxicity. This books discusses recent findings as well as several unresolved issues and challenges regarding the interaction and biological e???ects of nanoparticles. Only detailed studies of these processes and mechanisms will allow researchers to understand the complex plant-nanomaterial interactions.

Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology ProtocolsThere are tens of thousands of structurally different hydrocarbons, hydrocarbon derivatives and lipids, and a wide array of these molecules are required for cells to function. The global hydrocarbon cycle, which is largely driven by microorganisms, has a major impact on our environment and climate. Microbes are responsible for cleaning up the environmental pollution caused by the exploitation of hydrocarbon reservoirs and will also be pivotal in reducing our reliance on fossil fuels by providing biofuels, plastics and industrial chemicals. Gaining an understanding of the relevant functions of the wide range of microbes that produce, consume and modify hydrocarbons and related compounds will be key to responding to these challenges. This comprehensive collection of current and emerging protocols will facilitate acquisition of this understanding and exploitation of useful activities of such microbes.