Recent Advances in Botanical Science

The present work was undertaken to study the growth pattern of Drummondia stricta (Mitt.) Müll. Hal. in six different culture media with a combination of auxin and cytokinins, using spores as explants in aseptic cultures. In Drummondia, there is a tendency of multicellular spore formation and spore germination is precocious and endosporic. It has been observed that plant growth was the most satisfactory in the ½ Knop’s + 0.1 mg/L IAA + 0.1 mg/L Kinetin followed by ½ Knop’s, 0.1 mg/L IAA + 0.1 mg/L BAP. However, no growth was observed in case of ½ KNOP’s and Hoagland media.

Bryophytes constitute one of the most prominent groups among terrestrial vegetation in South Shetlands Islands of Antarctica. The present study is focused on the bryoflora which exists in association with other life forms in the studied regions. Though, the taxonomy of the Antarctic bryophytes has received much attention in recent years but their associations, especially with lichens and fungi/algae are somewhat neglected by earlier explorers. However, these associations are very crucial for plant succession in the area like Antarctica. A checklist of bryophytes has been provided along with their associated forms with short discussion on the associations to signify the importance of these tiny plants.

Computational/Bioinformatics resources play an important role in biological research, including studies on bryophytes, a group of non-vascular land plants categorized into hornworts, liverworts, and mosses. These resources deal with the development and application of computational approaches to solve biological problems. The availability of such resources, including databases, software, and other tools are useful in the analysis and interpretation of biological data. This chapter provides a description of various useful bioinformatics resources, which can bring a major change in terms of time, money, and labor in studies related to bryophytes.

The molecular sequence data have been utilized immensely to resolve the phylogeny of bryophytes, primarily the monophyletic relationship of bryophytes and their position in the evolution of land plants. However, the study also described division bryophyta as a paraphyletic group with only one of its classes related to the vascular plants and another one sister to all other land plants. The debatable position of earliest diverging lineages of the mosses such as Takakia and Sphagnum spp., and other genera can also be resolved more accurately with increasing knowledge of fast DNA sequencing techniques and bioinformatics tools. Different nuclear-encoded genes (18S, 26S) or chloroplast genes (trnF-trnL, psbA, rbcL, rps4) and mitochondrial encoded genes (Cob intron, nad2, nad5) emerge as the suitable marker to understand the deep level of the molecular phylogeny of bryophytes. The selection of suitable markers, evolutionary model and phylogenetic tree evaluation methods are necessary for the better understanding of molecular phylogeny.

The Calymperaceae occurring in Kerala are described here in. Five genera are recognised within the family viz., Calymperes Sw., Exostratum L. T. Ellis, Leucophanes Brid., Octoblepharum Hedw. and Syrrhopodon Schwägr. In Kerala, Calymperes is represented by eight species, Syrrhopodon by five, Leucophanes by L. glaucum and L. octoblepharioides, Exostratum by E. blumii, and Octoblepharum by O. albidum Hedw., Exostratum is a new genus record and Syrrhopodon prolifer is a new species record for Kerala.

Valsad district lies in the southern part of the state which harbours some locations embracing good diversity of bryophytes. In the present study, the bryodiversity of a potential location, i.e., Wilson hill and surroundings has been explored and reported. The study reveals the existence of 15 species of bryophytes that included 5 liverworts, 2 hornworts and 8 mosses under 9 families. Three new additions to the Bryoflora of Gujarat have also reported, viz., Taxilejeunea ghatensis, Notothylas anaporta, and Notothylas himalayensis. Interestingly, the majority of species found were terricolous in nature.

Microsatellites also called as simple sequence repeats (SSRs) are stretch of repetitive DNA consisting of 1-6 nucleotides. Microsatellites are widely used as molecular markers and have been identified in many organisms including Bryophytes. However, despite the availability of the mitochondrial genome of Aneura pinguis, the information about its mitochondrial SSRs (mtSSRs) is not well understood. In the present study, a total of 26 mtSSRs were mined in the mitochondrial genome of Aneura pinguis. Di-nucleotides (15, 57.69%) were the most abundant followed by tetranucleotides (6, 23.08%), tri-nucleotides (4, 15.38%), and mono-nucleotide (1, 3.85%) repeats, whereas penta- and hexa-nucleotides were completely absent. The identified mtSSRs can be used in transferability studies and also play an important role in genetic diversity analysis of Aneura species.

Bryophytes, the most primitive group of land plants, though elusive, are useful to humans in a number of ways. They are elusive due to their preference to grow in micro-habitats with high humidity. Regarding their uses, tribal people in North America and China, use bryophytes in their traditional medicines. Many have antimicrobial and anticancer properties as well. Some mosses are used as effective filtering and absorption agents in the treatment of waste water and effluents containing heavy metals and organic substances. They are widely used as indicators of heavy metals in air pollution and are also remarkable indicators of radioactive pollution. Bryophytes assist in geobotanical prospecting as ecological indicators in botanical surveys. They are generally poikilohydric, losing water rapidly with rising temperature and hence when forests are cleared or disturbed due to selective felling, these moisture and shade-loving plants perish. Therefore, bryophytes serve as good indicators of human disturbances in forests.

The taxa of genus Porella (Dill.) L. in Nilgiri Hills, Western Ghats are discussed, keyed, illustrated and provided with distribution. These are Porella madagascariensis (Nees & Mont.) Trevis, P. chinensis Steph., P. perrottetiana (Mont.) Trevis., P. acutifolia (Lehm. & Lindenb.) Trevis., Porella caespitans S. Hatt. var. setigera (Steph.) S. Hatt., P. campylophylla (Lehm. & Lindenb) Trevis. and P. campylophylla (Lehm. & Lindenb.) Trevis. var. ligulifera (Tayl.) S. Hatt., and one more species of Porella, P. pinnata was reported earlier from the area but could not be collected from any of the explored localities of the Nilgiri hills of Tamil Nadu. Illustrations of all the species of Porella recorded are also provided.

The habitat and organism interaction decide the fate of the organism regarding its survival and expansion. Every organism has its own preferred habitat to reside and reproduce. Habitat loss is one of the major reasons of species extinction and endemism. A very specific relationship exists between these two components of ecosystem where rigid species become extinct and flexible prevail. In this study, habitat range of bryophytes from two bryological regions has been presented in a pictorial way to amplify the perspective regarding the habitat flexibility of the first land plants.

Bryodiversity, including liverworts and hornworts strongly concentrated in the humid tropics is ecologically very significant. The present paper provides the first hand consolidated account of 42 species of liverworts and hornworts belonging to 19 genera and 13 families of Kolhapur District. It includes a detailed account of the bryodiversity, causes of threats and action plan for their conservation, monitoring and management.

Family Fissidentaceae is one of the largest family of class Bryopsida. The family is also known as a tinny fern moss family due to the general appearance of plant body similar to that of a typical fern plant. This is a monogeneric taxon (Fissidens). This family comprises of ca. 450 taxa distributed all around the world. Among these, 86 reported from India, 53 from china and 37 from North America. Bryoflora of Pakistan represents ca. 18 species of this unique family. The individuals like shady, moist places in forests, entrances of caves, sprays of waterfalls and along rivers, a few species completely aquatic, growing on soil, rocks, termite mounds, lower trunks of trees, branches, dead wood, rarely epiphyllous, in moist or wet lowland to high mountain forests. The identification parameters of this family are somewhat different from others. The identification is based on peristome types, lambidial cells (size, number, and position), laminal cells (size, shape and papillae etc.), costa type and in some cases habitats. This chapter focused on the detail background, identification strategies, taxonomic parameters, distribution and conservation strategies etc.