Medicinal plants in peril due to climate change in the Himalaya

Identification of Major Threats of Climate Change, Hazards, and Anthropogenic Activities on Biodiversity Conservation in the Buxa Tiger Reserve, India

The Himalayan forests are facing a range of threats, which are making conservation efforts challenging. Using a mixed-method approach, this study investigated the threats to biodiversity conservation in Buxa Tiger Reserve (BTR), a fragile ecosystem in the Eastern Himalayan foothills. The study found that between 1990 and 2021, BTR experienced rising summer temperatures and decreasing annual precipitation, contributing to forest dryness, water scarcity, and forest fires. Natural disasters such as floods, flash floods, earthquakes, and landslides also caused significant damage to wildlife habitats. Changes in land use and land cover, including encroachment, infrastructure development, fuelwood collection, and grazing practices, were also identified as significant drivers of ecosystem alteration. Besides, hunting and poaching also emerged as threats to wildlife populations in the reserve. By employing the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), the study determined that land use change, infrastructure development, climate change, livestock grazing, and fuelwood collection pose significant threats to flora conservation outcomes in BTR, while infrastructure development, climate change, livestock grazing, and forest fires are the primary threats to wildlife conservation outcomes in the reserve. The study recommends the regulation of land use practices, promotion of sustainable livelihoods for local communities, effective conservation strategies, and public awareness and education programs to promote the value of biodiversity conservation.

The factors affecting the development of medicinal plants from a value chain perspective

MAIN CONCLUSION

From a value chain perspective, this paper examines the important factors from the selection of planting areas to storage, which restrict the development of medicinal plants. The purpose of this paper is to provide theoretical basis for the sustainable development of medicinal plants. Medicinal plants have significant economic and medicinal value. Due to the gradual depletion of wild medicinal plant resources, cultivators of medicinal plants must resort to artificial cultivation to cope. However, there are still many problems in the production process of medicinal plants, resulting in decreases in both yield and quality, thus hindering sustainable development. To date, research on the value chain of medicinal plants is still limited. Therefore, this paper analyzes the factors affecting the development of medicinal plants from the perspective of the value chain, including the selection of growing areas to the storage process of medicinal plants, and summarizes the challenges faced in the production process of medicinal plants. The purpose of this paper is to provide theoretical basis for the sustainable development of medicinal plants.

Novel SNP based analysis of genetic diversity in Polygonatum verticillatum Linn. across Indian Himalayas

Polygonatum verticillatum Linn. is an endangered medicinal herb from Himalayas whose rhizomes have recently been used to curate symptoms of COVID-19. During present investigation, a gene bank of P. verticillatum was established at High Altitude Herbal Garden of Forest Research Institute, Dehradun at Chakrata, at 2600 m amsl with germplasm collected from different states and union territory of India including Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir covering a wide range of geographical locations from an altitude of 1800 to 3600 m amsl. Genotyping by sequencing was applied to a set of 66 accessions of P. verticillatum to identify genome-wide high quality single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for analysis of genetic diversity. Neighbour-joining tree created from the distance matrix data grouped the genotypes into five distinct clusters. The results of principal coordinate analysis and Cluster analysis overlapped to identify Narkanda, Shimla (Himachal Pradesh) and Sunil village, Chamoli (Uttarakhand) as the regions with undisturbed, highly diverse natural populations of P. verticillatum. The species displayed little congruence in terms of genetic similarities with altitudinal range. This investigation is first of its kind on generation and utilization of SNPs to analyse genetic diversity in P. verticillatum with a very vivid sample collection across the entire Himalayan range in India.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13205-023-03654-4.