National Research Foundation Nepal is a multi-disciplinary plant research centre of international repute, undertaking basic and applied Research programmes in several strategically important areas of plant sciences, including plant systematics and biodiversity, conservation biology, environmental biology, horticulture and floriculture, plant-microbial interactions, plant biotechnology and genetic engineering, bioinformatics, plant diversity databases, and bio-prospection of plant and microbial resources for health, environment and industry-related products and technologies. NRFN has a wholesome expertise in plant biodiversity, plant-microbe interactions, biotechnology, and bioinformatics. The institute is known for its outstanding contributions to enriching the knowledge base on Nepal’s plant diversity, particularly in developing globally competent biotech and microbial technologies, herbal products and plant databases.
For ecology and vegetation purposes Nepal could be divided into four floristic regions i.e. (a) western (b) north-western (c) central, and (d) eastern, and bio- climatically these are broken down into twenty regions from humid tropical climate to the alpine arid regions. But for the purpose of identifying Nepal s flora for the special interest researcher, the following shows the zones from the point of view of altitude i.e. Tropical zone (below 1,000 m), Sub Tropical Zone (1,000 to 2,100 m), Temperate Zone (2,100 to 3,100 m), Sub Alpine Zone (3,100 to 4,100 m), the Alpine Zone (4,100 to 4,500 m), and the Alpine Steppe region.
The Institute is known for its outstanding contributions to enriching the knowledge base on Nepal plant diversity, developing globally competitive transgenic technologies, herbal products and phytoremediation technologies. NRFN is an important national repository of plant diversity in Nepal. NRFN collibrated botanic garden, several plant conservatories and experimental fields, a herbarium and laboratories, NRFN is one of the most active centres for research in taxonomy, biosystematics and conservation biology of lower and higher plants.
Plant sciences are among the most relevant scientific disciplines today. Think about two of the most important problems facing humankind: global warming and dependency on fossil fuels. Using a variety of approaches, plant scientists are addressing both problems – from the production of biofuels from plant origin to the use of plants in carbon sequestration.
Our research interests are Plant Pathology, plant systematics, phylogeny and ecological genetics, The focus of the research program is to understand the patterns of species diversity, genetic diversity and clonal diversity in plants in relation to the environments in which they grow, using the genus Carex as a model system.Patterns of species diversity vary widely among the groups of flowering plants.Within the monocotyledons, three large families account for most of the species:grasses (Poaceae), sedges (Cyperaceae) and orchids (Orchidaceae). Rhizomatous sedges dominate in many wetland habitats and woodland Carex species often account for as much as 10% of the herbaceous understory flora in temperate and boreal forests. In collaboration with colleagues from around the world,they are developing a phylogenetic hypothesis for then genus Carex using DNA sequence data and using this phylogeny to study character evolution and thebiogeographic patterns within the genus. These studies of the correlations among lineage diversification, ecological preferences, and structural innovations contribute to understanding the evolutionary processes that generate diversity.