Atul Bhargava and Shilpi Srivastava
Posters-Accepted Abstracts: Biol Syst Open Access
Biodiversity refers to the variability among living organisms that includes diversity within species between species and ecosystems. The widespread loss of the plant biodiversity is one of the most serious crises faced by mankind today. The causes of this loss include deforestation, developmental activities, human population growth and modern agriculture that entailed introduction of genetically uniform varieties. Conservation of genetic resources can be either in situ or ex situ whose choice depends on the objectives, the breeding system and on the available resources at hand. In recent years in situ on-farm conservation has become an important component of conservation programmes wherein rural people conserve landraces or folk varieties for public good at personal cost. It is being increasingly recognized that people�??s participation also forms an important and integral part of the conservation programmes. Besides the conventional methods, current approaches for conserving plant diversity include the use of molecular markers and geographical information systems (GIS). Information derived from the use of molecular genetic techniques is being successfully applied in many aspects of genetic diversity management.
