Research Projects

Fern and fern allies are the pioneer vascular plants to have appeared on the earth about 438 million years ago. They are extremely diverse in the humid tropics and recent data reveals that there are around 13,000 fern and lycophytes taxa worldwide. From a phylogenetic perspective, ferns and fern allies are still poorly understood group of vascular plants. The phylogenetic systematic are crucial for understanding the sequence of events associated with major changes in the vegetative and reproductive evolution of ferns. Out of the several families of ferns, the family Pteridaceae is well distributed along the eastern Himalaya having a high share of 71.66 % of total fern with more than 43 species. The phylogeny of this family has grabbed much attention among several Pteridologists. several earlier works have segregated as well as merged a number of genera and species under the family Pteridaceae. However, several genera within the family Pteridaceae are mingled with complexities being polyphyletic or paraphyletic and needs precise redefinition. Many of the previously recognized subfamilies most likely do not represent natural (monophyletic) groups, adequate investigations to fully resolve all parts of the Pteridaceae phylogeny are needed. Molecular phylogenetic studies of the Pteridaceae in last decade have primarily focused on the relationships within a few segregates. The Pteridaceae fern has experienced frequent taxonomic changes at generic and species rank since its establishment. Phylogenetic relationships among the genera of Pteridaceae remain unclear because of extreme morphological diversity and inadequate taxon sampling in phylogenetic studies to date. Thus, this family requires a comprehensive study of rich molecular resources for understanding the morphological and functional evolution as well as to create a robust phylogenetic framework. Large-scale and multiple-gene analyses to explicitly determine what major clades are present within the Pteridaceae and their phylogenetic relationships of the lineages to one another are further required. The Darjeeling Himalaya which is the part of the eastern Himalaya hotspot shelters diverse fern taxa within the family Pteridaceae. However, detailed morphological delineation along with phylogenetic relationships of the taxa has not been examined yet, and no such studies have been known from the region. The generic circumscription of the family and their relationships reported earlier is still much debated. Therefore, the present proposal has been planned with the following objectives- 1) To prepare a morpho-anatomical circumscription of each taxon under Pteridaceae 2) To resolve the morpho-anatomically generated phylogeny with the aid of DNA tools 3) To understand the systematics and affinities of the family Pteridaceae from Darjeeling Himalaya with Pteridaceae across the globe.