Tropical Bamboo: Molecular Profiling and Genetic Diversity Study

The unprecedented decline in biodiversity during the past few decades calls for immediate thorough review of biological wealth and proper conservation strategies of genetic-diversity. Despite huge economic potential, inadequate characterization of tropical bamboo leads to indiscriminate use of this ‘green gold'', posing potential threat to the tropical gene pool. Identification of bamboo is difficult due to lack of reproductive structure for its unusually long flowering cycle. This book provides a comprehensive characterization protocol (morphological and molecular) for bamboo species/genotype including development, characterization and screening strategies involving species- and genotype-specific molecular markers. Superiority of bamboo fibers from several natural habitats was assessed as a pilot study and molecular-marker- based screening strategy was described with genomic insights controlling the supremacy. This book should help academicians interested in molecular taxonomy, marker technology and genetic diversity assessment as well as quality-control personnel in paper and pulp industry for selecting superior fiber yielding genotypes with low downstream processing.