Ongoing Research
Conservation of Indigenous Crop Diversity: Phase II
a) Principal Investigator:
Dr. Anirban Roy
b) Implementing Institute:
West Bengal Biodiversity Board
c) Objectives:
- To conserve traditional crops on-farm through sustainable agricultural practices and promote those among interested farmers.
- To generate livelihood of local backward communities through agro-based conservation initiatives.
- To develop proper market linkage for such agricultural production.
- To develop an indigenous agro-bioresource based conservation-livelihood promotion model.
Exploration of Beneficial Soil Microbial Diversity from Lateritic West Bengal towards restoration of Agro Ecosystem
a) Principal Investigator:
Dr. Anirban Roy
b) Implementing Institute:
West Bengal Biodiversity Board
c) Objectives:
- To explore the bacteria and fungi from virgin soil-microbial complex.
- To culture potential soil microbes and identify using beneficial potentiality.
- To characterize through molecular technique.
- To multiply the beneficial microbes as subculture.
- To apply in the agricultural field and submit the sequence data to the national repository for ensuring the claim over such genetic resources.
Addressing the information gap on the status of critically endangered Chinese Pangolin in West Bengal.
a) Principal Investigator:
Smt. Sunita Pradhan
b) Implementing Institute:
ATREE Regional Office North East India, Sikkim
c) Objectives:
- To assess the current occurrence, status and current and emerging threats to the Chinese Pangolin along with the Indian Pangolin in two Protected Areas of North Bengal.
- To understand the ecology of the species including their habitat and prey availability in the selected Protected Areas.
- To identify major habitat of pangolin and map those areas.
- To provide management inputs for the conservation of the Critically Endangered Chinese Pangolin and the Endangered Indian Pangolin in West Bengal.
Development of conservation plan for plant resources of Nayagram and its adjacent areas in Jhargram for livelihood sustenance of the Lodha communities under the institutional mechanism of Biological Diversity Act, 2002
a) Principal Investigator:
Prof. M. Padmavati
b) Implementing Institute:
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal
c) Objectives:
- To survey Nayagram and adjacent areas on the use pattern of bioresources by local community (Lodha).
- To identify plant species for study design and evaluate existing conservation strategies.
- To articulate and develop a conservation plan related to the identified plant species.
- To assess the feasibility of suggested plan.
- To formulate strategy for amalgamating the said conservation plan with the Socio-economic development of local Lodha communities and generating awareness among the locals.
- Establishing policy guidelines for effective conservation plan for those species.
Assessment of Taxonomic diversity of mycorrhizal associations in the staple crops of Malda district of West Bengal
a) Principal Investigator:
Prof. Vivekananda Mandal
b) Implementing Institute:
University of Gour Banga, Malda, West Bengal
c) Objectives:
- Collection of roots and rhizospheric soil.
- Identification of mycorrhizae by Morpho-Biochemical method.
- Quantification of mycorrhizal colonization of roots and rhizospheric soil.
- Testing of soil parameters that influence the mycorrhizal community structure and distribution.
- Establishing the relations of soil parameters and agricultural practices on mycorrhizal diversity in the targeted staple crops.