Forest Research: Open Access
Open Access

Abstract

Isozymatic Characterization of Accessions of Arundinaria falcata (Nees)

Chandrakant Tiwari and Meena Bakshi

Bamboos are arborescent grasses belonging to the family Poaceae. To study the genetics of bamboo specially, one has to face enormous difficulties such as rare flowering and we cannot make hybridizations as easily as like other plant taxa. Unlike other tropical bamboos, studies on hill bamboos are scarce. Arundinaria falcata, an important hill bamboo, acts as soil stabilizer in hilly terrain. This study assessed the genetic diversity of 10 accessions of A. falcata collected from different localities of Garhwal Himalayas (India) and established at Hill bamboo Germplasm at Khirsu (India), using isozyme marker with four enzyme system (peroxidase, esterase, malate dehydrogenase and malic enzyme). Isozymatic analyses were performed with polyacrylamide gels (one system), bands were scored as binary data. Cluster analyses were conducted, using Jaccard´s similarity coefficient and UPGMA method. Very high degree of similarity was reported i.e. 63- 94% among different accessions. Dendrogram revealed two major clusters with three (A8- A10) and seven (A1-A7) accessions respectively. The results obtained inferred low genetic diversity in the species and urgent need of the in situ conservation of the natural genetic resources of the A. falcata species.