Biology, Genome Evolution, Biotechnological Issues and Research Including Applied Perspectives in Artemisia (Asteraceae)

Artemisia is one of the largest genera of the family Asteraceae or Compositae, itself the biggest flowering plant family. It comprises around 600 taxa at specific and subspecific levels, present in all continents but Antarctica, mostly distributed in the Northern Hemisphere, with no more than 25 taxa in the Southern Hemisphere. The genus displays a huge ecological plasticity, with species occurring from sea level to high mountains and from arid zones to wetlands. Some species are cosmopolitan, including landscape-dominating plants over large areas, and others are endemics with a quite restricted distribution area. Many species of the genus have economic uses at both folk and industrial levels, and some of them are widely cultivated and submitted to breeding programmes as crops. In this review, we will set out the state of art of Artemisia systematics and phylogeny, as well as all the biological aspects of the genus, with particular attention paid to those of genome organization, and of applied questions related to its useful taxa. In the first part of this chapter, we will review all the systematic points in the genus and in some closely related genera that constitute, with the core genus Artemisia, a pool with controversial structuring. Besides, the infrageneric classification will be addressed. All these questions will be treated in the light of recent molecular phylogenetic studies, which have had an important impact on its systematics and taxonomy. A second part will be devoted to genome organization and evolution in Artemisia, with special attention to cytogenetic data, including genome size, and genetic variability. These points are relevant for understanding the evolutionary pathways in the genus and for applied purposes. The third and fourth parts of the chapter will review, respectively, the uses of Artemisia species in different domains and the biotechnological issues linked to their productivity. Finally, the perspectives of the knowledge and applied aspects of the genus will be addressed.