{"id":17517,"date":"2024-06-24T03:31:33","date_gmt":"2024-06-23T22:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=17517"},"modified":"2025-04-05T04:50:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T23:20:51","slug":"new-plant-species-upsc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/new-plant-species-upsc\/","title":{"rendered":"New plant species"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About New Plant Species:\u00a0<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Researchers discovered two new plant species namely <strong>Dendrophthoe longensis<\/strong> (from Andaman and Nicobar islands) and <strong>Petrocosmea arunachalense<\/strong> (from Arunachal Pradesh).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Dendrophthoe longensis<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It is an aerial <strong>stem-parasitic flowering plant<\/strong> species discovered from the Long Islands of middle Andamans.<\/li>\n<li>It was found on the specific <strong>host plant &#8211; Mango, Mangifera indica<\/strong> in the edge of evergreen forests, low land areas of tropical forests.<\/li>\n<li>The species is from the <strong>family Mistletoe<\/strong> &#8211; a group of <strong>hemi-parasitic flowering plants <\/strong>which exhibit a suite of remarkable adaptations associated with the hemi-parasitic habitat.<\/li>\n<li>The species is sparsely scattered and confined to a few <strong>localities of Long Island.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Threats:<\/strong> Aerial stem-parasitic flowering mistletoe plants are under great pressure due to <strong>destruction of natural habitat<\/strong> and other <strong>anthropogenic activities <\/strong>especially timber harvesting of host tree species, developmental works which are causing population declines worldwide.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Petrocosmea arunachalense<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It is a very <strong>small herb <\/strong>and the researchers located it inside a cave indicating that the species requires less sunlight\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The species is completely white with <strong>purple blotch<\/strong> and the plant has a hairy texture.<\/li>\n<li>It is only the second known species from the <strong>genus Petrocosmea<\/strong> in India.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What are biodiversity hotspots?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Biodiversity hotspots are <strong>geographic areas<\/strong> with an exceptionally <strong>high richness<\/strong> of species, including rare and <strong>endemic species.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Around the world, <strong>36 areas qualify as hotspots<\/strong>. Their intact habitats represent just 2.5% of Earth\u2019s land surface, but they support more than half of the world\u2019s plant species as endemics\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>To qualify as a biodiversity hotspot, a region must meet two strict criteria:\n<ul>\n<li>It must have at <strong>least 1,500 vascular plants as endemics<\/strong> \u2014 which is to say, it must have a high percentage of plant life found nowhere else on the planet. A hotspot, in other words, is irreplaceable.<\/li>\n<li>It must have <strong>30% or less<\/strong> of its original <strong>natural vegetation<\/strong> and must be threatened.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>There are <strong>4 biodiversity hotspots<\/strong> in India namely; Himalayas, Indo-Burma region, Western Ghats and Sundaland.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1: What is Parasitism?<\/h3>\n<p>It is a relationship between two species of plants or animals in which one benefits at the expense of the other, sometimes without killing the host organism.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/two-biogeographic-hotspots-in-india-yield-two-new-plant-discoveries\/article68321267.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Two bio-geographic hotspots in India yield two new plant species<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers discovered two new plant species namely Dendrophthoe longensis and Petrocosmea arunachalense .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":17518,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}