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Pseudanabaena limnetica, the cyanophycean microalga, like other members of Cyanophycea, is an excellent source of pigments such as phycocyanin, proteins, carotenoids and polysaccharides. These strains also form a large proportion of algal biomass. The P.limnetica strain can grow in the extreme environmental conditions and it grows well in SW-BG 11 medium under laboratory conditions. In the present investigation, this cyanobacteria strain was isolated from the salt pans of Mulund Mumbai areas and it was cultivated in the lab under controlled conditions of light and temperature with optimum parameters of nitrate and carbonate concentrations. The culture was cultivated in the 60L photo bioreactor systems with the (65,000-85,000 lux) at 45?C in the SW-BG11 medium. The optimization experiments were carried out at the indoor and outdoor conditions. The nitrate and carbonate concentrations were optimized for obtaining maximum amount of algal biomass along with the blue-green phycocyanin pigment. The phycocyanin pigment was lyophilized for its further incorporation into the food and cosmetics products. The spectroscopic calculations of phycocyanin, allophycocyanin and phycoerythrin was done at 620, 650 and 562 nm using the Bennett and Bogorad equation. From the results obtained, it was concluded that 0.1gms/L and 1.5gms/L of the carbonate and nitrate concentrations, respectively, were the ideal concentrations for the further experiments for the cost effective production of P. limnetica in the SW-BG 11 medium. The outdoor conditions were found to be favorable for obtaining the maximum biomass and phycocyanin pigment production which would - make it more cost effective, commercially.

Garcinia L. is a pantropically distributed genus with high species richness in South East Asia. It is a tropical evergreen plant with distinct morphological characteristics and has a high degree of endemism. Outstanding features of the Garcinia L. genus are monopodial growth, leafy texture, oil cavities containing yellow or light-colored resins present on all parts of the plant and polygamodioecious reproductive behavior. The current study was conducted to develop barcodes for different species of the genus Garcinia L., distributed widely in the Western Ghats of India. We assess the discrimination power of the plant DNA barcode (rbcL, matK, trnH-psbA, rpoB-trnCGAR and ITS), across major Garcinia L. species. Our results clearly demonstrate the value of plastid barcode data, previously unavailable for Garcinia L. species. Ten Garcinia L. species and three outgroup taxa selected from the Western Ghats of India for evaluation using four regions in the plastid genome (rbcL matK, trnH-psbA, rpoB-trnCGAR) and nuclear-transcribed spacer (nrITS) in order to discriminate them at the species level. A characteristic feature of all barcodes, maximum likelihood analysis, and Wilcoxon signed-rank test were used for species discrimination. The number of conserved sites were more using matK primer whereas more variables and informative sites found in rpoB-trnCGAR loci. For internal branches of species-specific clusters, maximum likelihood analysis showed a more resolved topology. Wilcoxon signed-rank test indicated a higher divergence for coding and non-coding regions. DNA barcoding was found to be a practical and rapid method for identifying more endemic species. These findings will potentially be helpful in delineating the various species of Garcinia L.

Garcinia indica is a tree species of the family Clusiaceae. This species is endemically distributed only in Ratnagiri and Sindhudurga district of Maharashtra. Plants collected in particularly Dive Agar and Sawantwadi show morphological variations. Mitotic chromosomes from three different population from the Konkan region were studied using propionic orcein stain. Chromosome numbers 2n = 54 is reported for all the populations. Three populations differed from each other in some aspects. Karyotype analysis showed that Deorukh population from Ratnagiri region showed one pair of satellite and one pair of secondary constrictions while Otawane population from Sawantwadi showed one satellite chromosome but differ in pattern of secondary constriction. Third, Diveagar population from Raigad district showed three pairs of satellite chromosomes and one pair of secondary constriction. So, it can be concluded that, plants from Bapat Garden of Dive Agar and Otawane region can be considered as cytotypes.

Anthropogenic activities leading to the industrial revolution have contributed substantially to climate change by adding carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere which has caused a gradual but significant increase in the atmospheric temperature through the years. Part of the efforts to mitigate CO2 involves the capture and sequestration using microalgae. Efforts were made in KET’s VG Vaze College to screen indigenously isolated thermophilic cyanobacteria for this purpose. High temperature adaptability (42oC), high CO2 tolerance (23.08%), reasonably high biomass production and easy harvesting made G. sulphureum a promising candidate for the CO2 sequestration in the tropical climatic conditions. The present communication deals with the optimisation of productivity of G. sulphureum in a lab scale tubular photobioreactor by altering paramters such as light regime, CO2 supplementation, and nitrate and carbon source optimisation. The baseline productivity was 0.035 g/Lday before optimisation. In case of the cumulatively optimised productivity, it increased to 0.094 g/Lday with the highest reported biomass concentration of 1.29 g/L.