Pathogenic and Mutualistic Symbiotic Interactions in Angiosperm Trees

Abstract

The Cucurbitaceae family includes many high-value and flavorful crops consumed as vegetables, fruits, and seeds in diets throughout the world (Chap. 1, McCreight 2016). Crops such as squashes and pumpkins (Cucurbita pepo, maxima and moschata), cucumbers (Cucumis sativus), melons (Cucumis melo) and watermelons (Citrullus lanatus), make significant contributions to human nutrition. In the past decade we have seen tremendous progress with respect to genomic technologies, and cucurbit crops, with their small genome sizes [~367, 450, 385, and 400 Mbp for cucum-ber, melon, watermelon, and squash, respectively], have benefitted richly from these advances. The recent assemblies of draft genome sequences for the four major cucurbit species make it feasible to identify, characterize and utilize genes in ways that were not possible even a few years ago. This volume explored the genetic diversity of cucurbit crops, advances to unravel cucurbit genomes, and evolving applications of genomics to understand cucurbit growth, development and adaptation to their environments.