THREATS AND CONSERVATION

The pteridophytes are moisture and shade loving plants and dependent upon the microclimatic conditions of the region for their successful survival in that region. Any kind of disturbance in these microclimatic conditions can hinder the growth and evolutionary processes occurring naturally in these plants thereby, leading to decline in their populations. Thus, factors like climate change, increasing urbanization, industrialization, encroachment of forest lands, unplanned developmental activities, over exploitation of natural resources, pose a major threat to the survival of these groups of plants. Due to unplanned felling of trees in the forests the members of epiphytic pteridophytes belonging to the families Polypodiaceae, Davalliaceae, Aspleniaceae, Vittariaceae, have been reduced day-by-day (Dixit, 2000). Large scale collection of ferns from the forests by the visitors and local people for ornamental purpose, medicinal purpose and during excursions also increases the pressure on these plants.

Biodiversity conservation is the need of time and hence, it has become imperative to develop in situ and ex situ conservation methods for conservation of the diminishing biodiversity. The in situ conservation is very beneficial as it allows the evolution of the species to continue within the area of natural occurrence. Hence, the steps for conserving the ferns in situ should be focused upon. The ex situ conservation includes development of botanical gardens or conservatories, germplasm banks, DNA banks, seed banks and involve the use of techniques such as tissue culture, cryopreservation; incorporation of disease, pest and stress tolerance traits through genetic transformation and ecological restoration of rare plant species and their populations (Kapai et al, 2010). The conservation of flowering plants has been achieved to good extent by developing conservatories and botanical gardens which also help in creating awareness among the local people. However, developing a fern conservatory or fern garden is not preferred much and hence, such steps should be considered and implemented for conserving the rare and endangered species. The tissue culture is a very useful technique for the mass multiplication of the plant species in a short time and hence, researches focusing on developing a protocol for in vitroregeneration of ferns and fern-allies should be encouraged. Parts of areas rich in abundant pteridophyte diversity can be declared as pteridophyte biosphere reserves or small gene sanctuaries can be established to save the epiphytic pteridophytes.