Earticle

Biodiversity, referring to the variety and abundance of species, their genetic composition, and the communities, ecosystem, and landscapes, is essential to maintain healthy and productive forests, and to provide useful hedge against the future uncertainties in conditions of the environment and natural resources. To realize the long-term sustainability for forest production of goods and services is dependent upon maintaining and enhancing the biodiversity in the forest ecosystem. Because we can not always recognized which portion of biodiversity is essential to maintain the stability and sustainability of the natural system, conserving biodiversity is even unconditionally important. Even though the activities of forest resource management may have a variety of negative impacts on biodiversity by modification of the natural ecosystem into economically effective artificial ecosystem, forest professionals have been developing intelligent scheme to coexist management and conservation. However, conservation of biodiversity must be a complex problem encircled by ecological, economical, and social considerations. There seems to be no such a simple and easy solution. Strategies for ecologically deliberated forest resource management, which could play an important role to conserve biodiversity, were discussed.

The biometry, morphological properties and chemical composition of bagasse, corn, sunflower, rice, and rapeseed residues plants were analyzed. The results revealed differences in biometry properties and chemical composition of the different types of agricultural resides investigated. The greatest proportion of fiber length (1.32 mm) and cellulose (55.56%) was found in residues of bagasse plants, with a low ash (1.78%) and lignin (20.5%). The lignin of all types of agricultural resides was less than hardwood and softwood. In addition, the rice and rapeseed residues plants had highest amount of ash and extractive component. The slenderness and flexibility ratios of the all types of agricultural resides fibers were similar to some of hardwood and softwood species.

Chinese fir (Latin name: Cunninghaimia lanceolata) is one of the major commercial coniferous trees. Most of Chinese fir forests are managed in successive rotation sites, which lead productivity to decline. Autotoxicity is the important reason for soil degradation of Chinese fir plantation, especially, phenolic acids are considered as the major allelopathic toxins which induce autotoxicity in Chinese fir rotation stands. We performed here proteomic approach to investigate the response of proteins in Chinese fir leaves to salicylic acid. The tube plantlets of Chinese fir clone were treated with 120 mg/L salicylic acid for 1, 3 and 5th day. 2-DE, coupled with MALDI-TOF-TOF/ MS, was used to separate and identify the responsive proteins. We found 12, 7, and 12 candidate protein spots that were up- or down-regulated by at least 2.5 fold after 1, 3, and 5th day of the stress, respectively. Of these protein spots, 16 spots were identified successfully. According to the putative physiological functions, these proteins were categorized into five classes (1) the proteins involved in protein stability and folding, including 26S proteome, Grp78, Hsp70, Hsp90 and PPIase; (2) the protein involved in photosynthesis and respiration, including OEC 33 kDa subunit, GAPDH; (3) the protein related to cell endurance to acid, F-ATPase; (4) the protein related to cytoskeleton, tubulin; (5) the protein related to protein translation: prolyl-tRNA synthetase. These results give new insights into autotoxic substance stress response in Chinese fir leaves and provide preliminary footprints for further studies on the molecular signal mechanisms induced by the stress.

Jatropha curcas is an oil bearing species with multiple uses and considerable economic potential as a biofuel plant. Plant flowering and breeding characteristics are important for us to understand the reproduction of plant populations. The present study describes the floral biology and flowering phenology of J. curcas which is a prerequisite for hybridization program for genetic improvement through conventional breeding. The plant produces flowers in dichasial inflorescences. Normally, the flowers are unisexual, and male and female flowers are produced in the same inflorescence. Only a few male flowers are produced in an inflorescence, and fruits are produced only through pollination between different flowers from the same or different plants. This study includes a description of the inflorescence, flower anatomy of both male and female flowers, female : male ratio, pollen : ovule ratio, flowering phenology, pollen viability, stigma receptivity, comparison of selfing methods and a comparison of geitonogamy and xenogamy. This information may be useful in J. curcas breeding programmes.

Wetlands perform various functions of vital socio-ecological significance playing fundamental role in moderating monsoon tidal floods and coastal protection and generate goods and products such as fish and forest resources. The depletion of mangroves is a cause of serious environmental and economic concern to many developing countries. Problems of sustainability of mangrove ecosystems are not only technical but also socio-economic. Functions played by mangrove wetlands are of fundamental importance for society. The present study aims to identify the challenges of the mangrove wetlands of Southeast coast of Chittagong, their uses and socio-economic influence on local people, and the value of ecosystem services, and to suggest how to conserve this ecosystem in a more equitable way.

The Acacia seyal Del. var. seyal belongs to family Mimosaceae is known locally as gum Talha tree. It is a multipurpose tree species occurs throughout the African gum belt in Savannah mostly in pure forest. In Sudan it thrives on heavy clay soils that receive an annual rainfall between 400-800 mm. It is an important source of rural energy (fuelwood and charcoal) and forage. As mentioned by Nair (2007) the economic damage causes by insect in natural forest often difficult to judge due to no enough research attention The tree is frequently affected by biotic factors among them the insect pests. During a survey in the 1980´s the tree was severely infested by the longhorned beetles (Cerambycidae) severely infesting other Acacia species, but the ecological data are overlooked. Therefore, the objective of the study was to assess infestation characteristics and to determine environmental factors triggering the attack of longhorned beetles. A temporary random sampling technique was applied to observe the damage characteristics of the longhorned beetles on tree species during May-July 2007. Five sample plots occupies by A. seyal were taken in Kordofan region directly observed for the presence of hole of emergence of the longhorned beetles, presence of dusts, presence of insect stages, girdling as well as other characteristics of damage . The study results indicate that the infestation rate of trees in the sampled sites ranged between zero and 23.08%. Further ecological researches are recommended.

The present study was undertaken in moist temperate forest of Mandal-Chopta area in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand, India. The aim of the present study was to assess the physical properties of soils in relation to the forest structure and composition. Twelve forest types according to the altitude, slope aspect and species compositions were selected for the study. Physical properties of soil i.e., soil colour, soil texture (per cent of sand, silt and clay), moisture content, water holding capacity, porosity, bulk density (gm/cm3) and void ratio were analyzed for three different depths viz., (i) ‘upper’ (0-10 cm), (ii) ‘middle’ (11-30 cm) and (iii) ‘lower’ (31-60 cm) in all the selected forest types. Phytosociological and diversity parameters viz. total basal cover (Gha-1), stem density (Nha-1), tree species richness, Simpson concentration of dominance and Shannon-Wiener diversity index were also calculated for each forest type. This study also provides the comparisons between the results of physical analysis of the present study with numerous other previous studies in the temperate Himalayan region of the Uttarakhand.

In an effort to evaluate the qualities of the unused woods designed for art materials, Yellow pine, Pitch pine, Suwon poplar, Platanus and Cherry grown in Korea has been investigated in the study. Physical and mechanical properties such as density, hardness, roughness, and abrasion of the woods were examined. Among the five species, Cherry wood showed the highest density in green, air-dried and oven-dried conditions. Hardness of Cherry wood was higher than those of Suwon poplar and Platanus. In softwoods, Pitch pine showed greater hardness than Yellow pine. Yellow pine and Platanus had the highest values of wood surface roughness. Abrasion value of cross, radial and tangential sections was the highest in Yellow pine and Suwon poplar. It has been concluded from the experiment that physical and mechanical properties such as density, hardness, roughness, and abrasion of the woods can be used as an indicator of the suitability for woodcraft material.

The high costs for ethanol production with lignocellulosic biomass as a second generation energy materials currently deter commercialization of lignocellulosic biomass, especially wood biomass which is considered as the most recalcitrant material for enzymatic hydrolysis mainly due to the high lignified structure and the nature of the lignin component. Therefore, overcoming recalcitrance of lignocellulosic biomass for converting carbohydrates into sugar that can subsequently be converted into biobased fuels and biobased products is the primary technical and economic challenge for bioconversion process. This study was mainly reviewed on the research trend of the enhancement of enzymatic hydrolysis for lignocellulosic biomass after pretreatment in bioethanol production process.