Ferns, collectively, represent an ancient species of vascular plant which has a direct connection to the beginning of life on Earth. Today they are valued for their ornamental appeal, environmental benefit or as sources of health benefiting metabolites. Current pteridology, the study of fern, encompasses a wide range of research activities including, but not limited to, plant physiology, stress tolerance, genetics and genomics.

Contributed by an international panel of experts

Part I - The fern's gametophyte: born to reproducing.- Azolla - a model system for symbiotic nitrogen fixation and evolutionary developmental biology.- Meristems of seedless vascular plants-the state-of art.- Biotechnology in clone gametophytes: future perspectives of homosporous ferns.- Morphogenic events in ferns: single and multicellular explants in vitro.- Experimental and practical applications of fern somatic embryogenesis.- Biotechnology and apogamy in Dryopteris affinis ssp. affinis: the influence of tissue homogenization, auxins, cytokinins, gibberellic acid and polyamines.- Scope of ferns in Horticulturae and Economic development.- Part II.- Evolution and Classification of Ferns and Lycophytes.- Exploring the role of auxin in the evolution of tracheophyte body plans.- Fern conservation: Spore, gametophyte and sporophyte ex situ storage, in vitro culture, and cryopreservation.- Azolla and Bougainville's voyage around the world.- Part III.- The power of gametophyte transformation.- Generation of transgenic Ceratopteris richardii spores to analyze Ca2+ dynamics during gravity-directed polarization.- Secondary metabolites of ferns.- Current trends in ferns/pteridophytes extracts: from plant to nanoparticles.- Part IV.- Novel gene of hyperaccumulator ferns in arsenic tolerance, uptake and metabolism: implications for crop improvement.- Fern phenology.- Desiccation tolerance in ferns: from the unicellular spore to the multi-tissular sporophyte.- New insights on atmospheric fern spore dynamics.- Ecological significance of brassinosteroids in temperate forest ferns.- Ecomorphology of stomata in temperate ferns under contrasting environments.- Recent advances in the use of mitochondrial activity of ferns spores for the evaluation of acute toxicity.- Update on the assessment of chronic phytotoxicity using fern spore biomarkers.- Role of ferns in environmental clean-up.