Assessing the genetic diversity of rice originating from Bangladesh, Assam and West Bengal.

BACKGROUND: Genetic diversity among rice cultivars from Bangladesh and North East India was assessed using a custom 384-SNP microarray assay. A total of 511 cultivars were obtained from several sources, choosing landraces likely to be from the aus subpopulation and modern improved cultivars from Bangladesh. Cultivars from the OryzaSNP set and Rice Diversity Panel 1 (RDP1) were also included for reference. RESULTS: The population analysis program STRUCTURE was used to infer putative population groups in the panel, revealing four groups: indica (76 cultivars), japonica (55) and two distinct groups within the aus subpopulation (aus-1 = 99, aus-2 = 151). Principal Component Analysis was used to confirm the four population groups identified by STRUCTURE. The analysis revealed cultivars that belonged to neither aus-1 nor aus-2 but which are clearly aus based on the combined probabilities of their membership of the two aus groups which have been termed aus-admix (96). Information obtained from the panel of 511 cultivars was used to assign rice groups to 74 additional landraces obtained from Assam and West Bengal. While both the aus-1 and aus-2 groups were represented approximately equally in India, aus-2 (which includes cultivar N 22) was more common in Bangladesh, but was not found at all in West Bengal. CONCLUSIONS: Examining the distribution of landrace names within theaus-1 and aus-2 groups suggests that aus-1 is associated with the term "boro", a word used to describe a winter growing season in Bangladesh and Assam. The information described here has been used to select a population of 300 cultivars for Genome Wide Association studies of the aus rice subpopulation.

Spatial heterogeneity and kinetic regulation of arsenic dynamics in mangrove sediments: the Sundarbans, Bangladesh.

The biogeochemistry of arsenic (As) in sediments is regulated by multiple factors such as particle size, dissolved organic matter (DOM), iron mobilization, and sediment binding characteristics, among others. Understanding the heterogeneity of factors affecting As deposition and the kinetics of mobilization, both horizontally and vertically, across sediment depositional environments was investigated in Sundarban mangrove ecosystems, Bengal Delta, Bangladesh. Sediment cores were collected from 3 different Sundarbans locations and As concentration down the profiles were found to be more associated with elevated Fe and Mn than with organic matter (OM). At one site chosen for field monitoring, sediment cores, pore and surface water, and in situ diffusive gradients in thin films (DGT) measurements (which were used to model As sediment pore-water concentrations and resupply from the solid phase) were sampled from four different subhabitats. Coarse-textured riverbank sediment porewaters were high in As, but with a limited resupply of As from the solid phase compared to fine-textured and high organic matter content forest floor sediments, where porewater As was low, but with much higher As resupply. Depositional environment (overbank verses forest floor) and biological activity (input of OM from forest biomass) considerably affected As dynamics over very short spatial distances in the mosaic of microhabitats that constitute a mangrove ecosystem.