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Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.), in the monogeneric family Punicaceae, is found in Iran, Afghanistan, India and Mediterranean countries. Iran is considered to be its primary centre of origin. In India, pomegranate occurs naturally only in the Western Himalayan regions of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand States. However, there is no information about genetic variation in wild pomegranate at population level. In this paper, we describe genetic diversity across natural populations of Indian pomegranate based on inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. Forty-nine accessions representing eight populations from two regions were analysed using ISSR. Seventeen ISSR primers resulted in 268 polymorphic bands, with 87.01% polymorphism throughout the accessions. Pair-wise population genetic distances ranged from 0.05 to 0.45, with a mean of 0.25 between populations. amova and Nei's genetic diversity analyses revealed higher genetic variation within populations than among populations. A higher genetic differentiation (G(ST)) was observed between the spatially distant populations, indicating a low level of genetic exchange (Nm) among these populations. However, clustering of populations was not in accordance with their geographical affiliations in the tree. The results indicate that the ISSR method is sufficiently informative and powerful to assess genetic variability in pomegranate, and that patterns of genetic variability observed among populations of wild pomegranate from the Western Himalaya differ. Estimation of genetic variation reported here provides a significant insight for in situ conservation and exploitation of genetic resources for this economically important species as potential breeding material.

We are interested in studying the distribution and range of diversity amongst the pomegranates in India. Single Primer Amplification Reaction (SPAR) profiling using Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and Directed Amplification of Minisatellite DNA (DAMD) methods enabled the determination of the genetic diversity amongst a total of 64 Indian pomegranate genotypes including 15 wild, 34 semi-wild and 14 cultivated types. SPAR profile data were scored for the computation of pairwise distances as well as a Neighbour Joining (NJ) tree of all the genotypes. Eight RAPD and four DAMD primers showed discrete polymorphic patterns amongst these genotypes. From the profiles obtained with all the 12 primers considered together, 259 bands were scored. The NJ tree generated after a 1000 bootstrap test using Jaccard coefficient showed separation of Lagerstroemia speciosa used as the out-group taxon, while the pomegranate genotypes were resolved into distinct genetic lineages such that all the cultivated (except CBd70), and wild genotypes (except W101) clearly separated from other genotypes in distinct sub clusters while the semi-wild genotypes were resolved into three sub-clusters. The greatest and least distances detected between genotypes were 0.94 and 0.12, 0.97 and 0.24 and 0.95 and 0.38, amongst the cultivated, semi-wild and the wild genotypes respectively. The results indicate the high levels of genetic diversity present amongst the genotypes. Significantly, the wild genotypes also have a reasonably good range of diversity. A good germplasm collection, especially including the wild genotypes will enable a better pomegranate improvement program. Both SPAR methods, RAPD and DAMD, are found to be useful for studying the genetic diversity of pomegranate.

The emao, a traditional beer starter used in the North–East regions of India produces a high quality of beer from rice substrates; however, its microbial community structure and functional metabolic modules remain unknown. To address this gap, we have used shot-gun whole-metagenome sequencing technology; accordingly, we have detected several enzymes that are known to catalyze saccharification, lignocellulose degradation, and biofuel production indicating the presence of metabolic functionome in the emao. The abundance of eukaryotic microorganisms, specifically the members of Mucoromycota and Ascomycota, dominated over the prokaryotes in the emao compared to previous metagenomic studies on such traditional starters where the relative abundance of prokaryotes occurred higher than the eukaryotes. The family Rhizopodaceae (64.5%) and its genus Rhizopus (64%) were the most dominant ones, followed by Phaffomycetaceae (11.14%) and its genus Wickerhamomyces (10.03%). The family Leuconostocaceae (6.09%) represented by two genera (Leuconostoc and Weissella) was dominant over the other bacteria, and it was the third-highest in overall relative abundance in the emao. The comprehensive microbial species diversity, community structure, and metabolic modules found in the emao are of practical value in the formulation of mixed-microbial cultures for biofuel production from plant-based feedstocks.