Distribution, Identification and Genetic Diversity among Bamboo Species: A Phenomic Approach

Abstract

Bamboo is grown irrespective of latitude, altitude and climatic factors on the planet earth. Despite its immense importance in human life from cradle to coffin, the study of distribution of bamboo and their identification is still very limited. On this backdrop, an extensive survey on entire bamboo resources was conducted at South 24 Parganas (22020' N to 22006' N, 88020'E to 88060' E) district of West Bengal, India to document the distribution pattern of bamboo species followed by their identification. For selection of study area (blocks, gram panchayats and villages), probabilistic random sampling was used whereas non-probabilistic snow ball sampling was adopted for selection of respondents. Based on vegetative characters, species identification was done by Botanical Survey of India, Kolkata. Twenty-eight key photometric characteristics were recorded and the species diversity was analyzed. A total of 600 accessions were sampled which comprises 43 different variants. Of which Bambusa balcooa was the most predominant species in South 24 Parganas followed by Bambusa vulgaris. These two species are grown widely because of their suitability in construction of houses, bridges and also in agricultural activities. It is evident that the usability of the species was the chief reason of the diversity of bamboo species in the study area. Furthermore, the variation in the species may also be caused by the natural stress condition i.e. the variation in the level of salinity of the study area. The cluster analysis grouped the genotypes into ten different clusters.