Manish Tripathi - Böcker

This book contributes to understanding mountain-specific environmental issues and studies conducted to address these challenges at the ecosystem and community levels. Mountain ecosystems are distinctive and provide numerous services in the form of fresh water, fertile soil, and bioresources to ethnic communities as well as to populations residing in downhill areas. This unique landscape encompasses approximately 27% of the Earth’s surface. It harbors about half of the world’s biodiversity hotspots and 30% of all key biodiversity areas, as well as vital genetic resources for locally adapted crops and livestock. Mountains play a crucial role in influencing climate activities at regional and global levels, by regulating air circulation, precipitation, and temperature variations. Due to the spatio-temporal changes in climatic conditions in the mountains and limited resource availability, local inhabitants have developed traditional practices for agriculture, livestock management, forestry, water utilization, and land use systems. The mountain ecosystem directly or indirectly affects the populations residing in downstream areas. Globally, mountains are facing numerous challenges including water scarcity, land degradation, biodiversity loss, food insecurity, increasing pollution, migration, environmental hazards (including disasters, earthquakes, floods, landslides, avalanches, rapid melting of glaciers), and forest degradation. These issues are impacting the lives of mountain inhabitants as well as the populations residing in the vicinity of mountains. Thus, understanding the mountain ecosystem and related processes is imperative.

This book draws the reader into the latest debate on fungal diversity and the concept of lichen symbiosis. Chapters of this book cohere around four general themes: endolichenic fungi, isolation and culture, identification and bioactive potential. This is a highly informative book providing scientific insight for scholars interested in lichens and fungi. This research intrigues readers with this fascinating and less known fungal community residing inside lichens and arouses curiosity among lichenologists and mycologists about these fungi and their potential. This treatise provokes debate on the definition of lichen and its compositional organisms and invites further investigations on this topic by adding to the scholarly debate with various new perspectives on endolichenic fungi in the last chapter. Not only this, it also clarifies the differences between endolichenic fungi, mycorrhiza and lichenicolous fungi and the fungi found freely in air, water and soil and contributes tothe development of the new field of endolichenic fungi. This book supports readers to build their knowledge through helpful case studies conducted throughout the globe and plentiful figures and illustrations and chemical structures of the novel compounds harvested from endolichenic fungi. This book covers both classical and cutting-edge technologies in the field of endolichenic fungi and offers step-by-step procedures for isolation and identification of endolichenic fungi and further contributes in how one can harvest the secondary metabolites from endolichenic fungi. This book shares the knowledge of some highly experienced authorities in the field of lichenology, mycology and endolichenic fungi and offers a first stop for specialists who need information about particular aspects in the field of endolichenic fungi. This research will equip researchers, professors, professionals working in this field to understand lichens and its intricate internal ecosystem with a fresh perspective and also enables readers to explore further through annotated references to other works.

Not only this, it also clarifies the differences between endolichenic fungi, mycorrhiza and lichenicolous fungi and the fungi found freely in air, water and soil and contributes tothe development of the new field of endolichenic fungi.