Preface

The seed is the most important plant reproductive element, since it has conferred to plants a key advantage for the dispersal and distribution among land. The seed also represents the most economically important agricultural product worldwide, providing energy, nutrients, and raw materials for human nutrition, livestock feed, and innumerable manufactured goods.

Interestingly, investigation in seed has been primarily focused on understanding the biology of the embryo, the storage nutrient compartment, and the seed coat. A deeper understand‐ ing of seed biology has been significantly advanced in the last 10 years. The progress made in particular in research fields such as seed development and maturation, and seed dorman‐ cy and germination is remarkable. In addition, characterization of novel posttranslational modifications, including NO end products and S-nitrosylation/nitration, is of crucial impor‐ tance for protein turnover and new functional interplays between signaling sensing and transduction, which also expanded our knowledge about the complexity of developmental physiology in seeds. These progresses made possible a better understanding of how seeds translate soil environmental signals into their internal biology to make decisions for break‐ ing the dormancy and initiating with germination.

In the current era of metadata information, which is being obtained thanks to the advance of the high-throughput techniques and methodologies, many progresses have been made in multiple "omics" families—from functional genomics to phenomics, with the central goal of our current biology to establishing complete functional links between the genome and phe‐ nome, the so-called genotype-phenotype map. This will allow uncovering the connection of the molecular networks that control and integrate the physiological processes of seed devel‐ opment and germination, making seed research applicable to future challenges in agriculture.

Agriculture is charged with ensuring sufficient grain production in the face of pressing envi‐ ronmental constraints. A deeply integrated understanding of seed biology (genetics, devel‐ opment, and physiology) will play a key role in sustaining grain yield for the world's growing population.

The proposed research project aims to focus and integrate an updated vision of the recent advances in several different fields of seed biology that include, but not limited to, the evo‐ lution of seeds; genetic regulation during seed development and maturation; transcriptom‐ ics and proteomics; metabolic processes,ROS generation and seed physiological regulation; seed dormancy; seed vigor and germination; seed anatomy and morphology; nutritional and nutraceutical aspects of seeds; and seed biotechnological applications.

I would like to deeply thank the contributors of this project. I am also grateful to the editori‐ al team of InTechOpen for their very good cooperation and constant help.

> **Jose C. Jimenez-Lopez, PhD** Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) Granada, Spain

**Section 1**

**Seed Development**

**Provisional chapter**
