Taxonomic Revision and Phylogeny of the genus Piper L (Piperaceae) in India with its Bogeography' Funded by Science and Engineering Research Board, Department of Science and Technology (SERB-DST) New Delhi. 3 Years, 2019-2021

The genus Piper includes a number of economically and medicinally important species, e.g.  P.nigrum, P. betel, P. longum etc. distributed in different parts of Asia. The taxonomy of the genus is not completely resolved and the phylogeny of the genus is poorly understood. In this project, we aim to address the taxonomic complexities in the genus Piper using both morphological as well as molecular tools and also understand the phylogeny of Piper employing three polymorphic genes/ spacer regions viz., ITS2, 5.8s and chloroplast intron psbA-trnH. The project also aims to trace the biogeography of the genus Piper. This will be achieved by using different candidate genes to reconstruct the gene genealogies.