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A checklist of traditional edible bio-resources from Ima markets of Imphal Valley, Manipur, India
No full textA study was conducted at seven important markets
of Imphal Valley, Manipur in northeastern India, which are run exclusively by women and are popularly known as “the Ima markets”. The two year study was to find out the important edible bio-resources which are consumed daily by the local people of Manipur. Regular surveys were conducted at the selected markets at least three times a month. A total of 45 wild edible plants and 26 wild fruits were identified during the survey. Also, 25 edible animal resources were recorded. It is suggested that the high diversity of wild edible bio-resources needs to be conserved for livelihood sustenance of the local communitie
Miscellany: benefits of forests, direct and indirect
Get PDFForests are known to provide a wide range of benefits including provisioning, regulatory, cultural and supporting services.They provide food, fodder, fuelwood, timber, manure, and medicinal products. Forests also absorb rain water and release it slowly, allowing seepage into the soil, preventing its run-off with water
Whither giant trees?
Get PDFReeling under the impact of the heat in Bangalore these past few months? You’re not the first to complain. As far back as 1868, a fascinating account is provided of sepoys reporting that “in Bangalore, some twenty years ago their fingers were so benumbed with cold on early morning parades, that they found some difficulty in holding their muskets, whereas they cannot now complain of the cold being in any degree unpleasant.
Attenuation of camptothecin production and negative relation between hyphal biomass and camptothecin content in endophytic fungal strains isolated from Nothapodytes nimmoniana Grahm (Icacinaceae)
No full textEndophytic fungi, a group of fungi living inside the host plant tissues without causing visible symptoms of disease, are known to occur ubiquitously in plants. Existing in a mutualistic association with their host plants, they have been shown to enhance the plant’s ability to tolerate
abiotic and biotic stresses3. In culture, many endophytic species have been shown to produce a number of important
secondary metabolites including anticancer,antidiabetic, antifungal and immunosuppressant compounds. Many
of these compounds closely mimic those produced by the respective host plants, suggesting that the fungi could in fact potentially serve as an alternative source of plant secondary metabolites. Notwithstanding these findings, to date, there has been no major breakthrough in commercially exploiting the endophytic fungi as a source of important secondary metabolites. Among the reasons attributed
is the severe attenuation of production of the secondary metabolite by the fungi in culture. Li et al. showed that
successive cultures of an endophytic fungi Pericornia sp. isolated from Torreya grandifolia, resulted in the attenuation of taxol production, though the fungal growth itself was unaffected. Although the reasons for such attenuation are not extensively studied, it is conjectured
that it could be due to lack of host stimulus in the culture media
Accessibility, Demography and Protection: Drivers of Forest Stability and Change at Multiple Scales in the Cauvery Basin, India
No full textThe Cauvery basin of Karnataka State encompasses a range of land cover types,
from dense forest areas and plantations in the Western Ghats hills, to fertile agricultural
lands in the river valley. Recent demographic changes, rapid economic development and
urbanization have led to the conversion of vast stretches of forested land into plantations
and permanent agriculture. We examine the human drivers of forest cover change between
2001 and 2006, using MODIS 250 m data at multiple spatial scales of nested administrative
units i.e., districts and taluks. Population density does not emerge as a major driver of forest
distribution or deforestation. Protected areas and landscape accessibility play a major role in
driving the distribution of stable forest cover at different spatial scales. The availability of
forested land for further clearing emerges as a major factor impacting the distribution of
deforestation, with new deforestation taking place in regions with challenging topography.
This research highlights the importance of using a regional approach to study land cover
change, and indicates that the drivers of forest change may be very different in long settled
landscapes, for which little is known in comparison to frontier forests
Impact of the invasive plant, Lantana camara, on bird assemblages at Malé Mahadeshwara Reserve Forest, South India
No full textLantana camara is an invasive species that is widespread in India. Using birds as an indicator taxon, we investigated whether Lantana invasion was correlated with changes in ecosystem health of the moist and dry deciduous forests at the Malé Madeshwara Hills, Karnataka. We studied Lantana at four densities, low, medium, and high, and a no-Lantana control. Bird species diversity, species richness, and abundance were lower at high densities of Lantana in both forest types. Evenness increased with increase in Lantana density. To better understand the observed changes in bird community composition, we segregated birds into 2 guild types: microhabitat guilds and foraging guilds. An increase in Lantana density was correlated with a decline in canopy birds (of the canopy microhabitat guilds) and insectivores (of the insectivore foraging guilds). Our results suggest that Lantana affects the structure of the bird community by decreasing diversity, and that Lantana affects certain guilds more than others. Discover the world's researc
Confronting or Complementing? A Case Study on NGO–State Relations from Kerala, India
No full textNGOs have, of late, found some of their traditional domains, such as provision of micro-credit and participatory development, coinciding with or being
taken away by the state. How do they position themselves and retain relevance visa-vis the state in the changed scenario? Tracing the trajectory of interventions of a
local NGO in Kerala, India, this article shows that NGOs exhibit ‘multiple identities’— selective collaboration, gap-filling and posing alternatives—in the process of
engagement with the state. The ‘strategizing’ of such identities may hold the key to their relevance vis-a-vis the state
Participation in the Knowledge Society: the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement compared with participatory development
No full textThe possibilities and limits of participation at the ‘bottom’ (represented, for example, by PRA
and PLA) have been well articulated in development literature. However, the emergence of the
Knowledge Society has opened up spaces for what we could call participation at the ‘top’ (free software, wiki, open access), the implications of which Development Studies is only beginning to grapple with. Building upon recent debates on the issue, we take the cases of the free software
movement and participatory development, arguing that they share common ground in several ways. We aim to offer a few pointers on conceptualising development in the Knowledge Society
Tree species diversity and community composition in a human-dominated tropical forest of Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot, India
No full textThe structure, function, and ecosystem services of tropical forest depend on its species richness,
diversity, dominance, and the patterns of changes in the assemblages of tree populations over time.
Long-term data from permanent vegetation plots have yielded a wealth of data on the species diversity
and dynamics of tree populations, but such studies have only rarely been undertaken in tropical forest
landscapes that support large human populations. Thus, anthropogenic drivers and their impacts on
species diversity and community structure of tropical forests are not well understood. Here we present
data on species diversity, community composition, and regeneration status of tropical forests in a
human-dominated landscape in the Western Ghats of southern India. Enumeration of 40 plots
(50 m � 20 m) results a total of 106 species of trees, 76 species of saplings and 79 species of seedlings.
Detrended Correspondence Analysis ordination of the tree populations yielded five dominant groups,
along disturbance and altitudinal gradients on the first and second axes respectively. Abundant species
of the area such as Albizia amara, Nothopegia racemosa and Pleiospermum alatum had relatively few
individuals in recruiting size classes. Our data indicate probable replacement of rare, localized, and oldgrowth
‘specialists’ by disturbance-adapted generalists, if the degradation is continuing at the present
scale
Beyond exclusion: alternative approaches to biodiversity conservation in the developing tropics
No full textThe exclusionary protected area-based approach to biodiversity conservation has succeeded at several places,but at a significant social cost and conflict, especially in the developing country tropics.More inclusive approaches, including community-based conservation (CBC), its subset enterprise-based conservation(EBC), and payments-based conservation (PES) programs, have been tried in the past 15 years. A brief summary of the literature on socio-economic impacts of the exclusionary approach suggests that, although detailed studies and documentation is missing,impacts are significant, and the ethical argument against forced displacement quite strong. We then examine the potential of non exclusionary approaches from a broader perspective that values biodiversity gains as well as socio-economic ones. Our review suggests that (a) comprehensive socio–ecological and comparative studies of such initiatives are surprisingly scarce, (b) enterprise-based conservation offers some potential if design flaws, poor implementation, assumptions about homogeneous communities, and inattention to tenurial change and security are addressed, (c) payments-based programs require caution because of their focus on economic efficiency, and simplified assumptions regarding the nature of rights, biological information,monitoring costs, and state interventions, and (d) the alternatives
to exclusion have often not been given adequate state support and space to function, nor is the ongoing neoliberalization of the political-economic system conducive to giving them that space, except when they fit the direction of this larger process