Shambhu Kumar
Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany, India
Title: Exploration of hidden Foliicolous Micromycobial Diversity from Terai Forests of Uttar Pradesh, India
Biography
Biography: Shambhu Kumar
Abstract
As we know that, our forests are major resources of revenue, particulary from timber and medicine. The parasitic foliicolous fungi are one of the biotic destructor of the forest plants. They mostly attack on the living leaves as parasite and destroyed the bio-productivity by bringing a quantitative reduction and qualitative dearrangement of the living tissues of the host in multiple ways. After the Rio de Janeiro Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992, exploration of fungal biodiversity (Fungi s. l.) becomes more important than ever to know the cause of rapid depletion of biodiversity, their conservation management for beneficial use. Although, many fungi are host specific, if the host plant is endemic, the associated fungus will also have restricted distribution (endemic). Loss of endemic plant results in the total elimination of host-specific fungus from the ecosystem. In addition to this, the updated list of fungi of a particular region helps to prevent the bio-piracy. The Terai forest region of Uttar Pradesh is nurtured under a diverse set of climatic conditions and is adorned with rich phanerogamic vegetations, and has a natural paradise for fungi in general and foliicolous fungi in particular. A large number of foliicolous fungi have been encountered from this region under supervision of Prof. Kamal but the end is still not in sight and the survey is still continuing. In this continuation, the present paper aims to explore the hidden foliicolous miromycological diversity of this region and provide complete spectrum to plant pathologists to conserve and manage the plant diseases caused by the foliicolous fungi for future prospects. More than hundred foliar samples were collected during the present survey from the Terai forests of Uttar Pradesh and upon critical morphotaxonomic determinations, 10 foliar samples belong to hyphomycete were appeared as new to Science. The type samples have been deposited in the HCIO, IARI, New Delhi and AMH-ARI, Pune. The detail descriptions and nomenclatural novelties of novel taxa were deposited in MycoBank.