Numerous genomic-based studies have provided insight to the physiological
and evolutionary processes involved in developmental and environmental processes of
model plants such as arabidopsis and rice. However, far fewer efforts have been
attempted to use genomic resources to study physiological and evolutionary processes
of weedy plants. Genomics-based tools such as extensive EST databases and
microarrays have been developed for a limited number of weedy species, although
application of information and resources developed for model plants and crops are
possible and have been exploited. These tools have just begun to provide insights into
the response of these weeds to herbivore and pathogen attack, survival of extreme
environmental conditions, and interaction with crops. The potential of these tools to
illuminate mechanisms controlling the traits that allow weeds to invade novel habitats,
survive extreme environments, and that make weeds difficult to eradicate have potential
for both improving crops and developing novel methods to control weeds.
Keywords: AFLP, Amaranthus hypochondriacus, bacterial artificial chromosome
libraries, candidate genes, conyza canadensis, copy number variation, Euphorbia
esula, expressed sequence tags, genome wide association mapping, genomic
libraries, genomics, Helianthus ssp., herbicide resistance, invasiveness, ISSR,
microarray, next generation sequencing, pacific biosiences sequencing, siRNA,
targeted sequencing, two-hybrid libraries, weeds.
