ABSTRACT
It is now widely accepted that we are in an era of unpredictable climate change as a result of accelerated global warming largely due to our everincreasing use of the decreasing reserve of fossil fuels causing elevating emissions of detrimental greenhouse gases, a transition from nonrenewable carbon sources to renewable bioresources for energy generation is of great importance to address the concerns about energy challenges in relation to global climate change. The use of non-food energy crops as renewable fuels on a global scale has many advantages benefi cial to current ecological and economic issues. The C4 perennial species, switchgrass (Panicum virgatum, L. Poaceae) has been identifi ed as an herbaceous biomass fuel crop (Vogel 1996, 2004). Primarily planted for land conservation, and utilized for forage and hay (Moser and Vogel 1995), switchgrass produces 540% more renewable than consumed nonrenewable energy with its cellulosic ethanol emitting 94% less greenhouse gas than gasoline, serving as an excellent biofuel feedstock (Schmer et al. 2008). Trait modifi cations using conventional and molecular breeding as well as transgenic approaches
1Clemson University Genomics Institute, Clemson University, Biosystems Research Complex, Clemson, SC 29634. Email: Saski@clemson.edu 2Department of Genetics and Biochemistry, Clemson University, 110 Biosystems Research Complex, Clemson, SC 29634. *Corresponding author: hluo@clemson.edu
will signifi cantly enhance the great capacity of switchgrass plants for more cost-effective bioenergy production. The development of genomics tools in this important bioenergy crop is the key to help facilitate and accelerate genetic improvement of switchgrass for enhanced biomass production and more effi cient bioconversion. This chapter summarizes recent advances in switchgrass genomics research focusing on structural genomic resources development and their important applications. We also discuss the signifi cance and prospects of developing functional genomics, proteomics and metabolomics tools as well as genome sequencing initiatives in switchgrass.
