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Value, threats, the Red List and conservation

मराठीत स्पष्टीकरण

Biodiversity · Part 2 / 2 · Fact-checked on 8 November 2026 · how we check

Written with AI from the sources listed at the bottom of this page, then fact-checked by a separate AI.

Direct values and ecosystem services; the rivet popper hypothesis; the evil quartet of threats; background and mass extinctions; the IUCN Red List and its categories; in situ and ex situ conservation, sacred groves, seed and gene banks; India's biodiversity institutions.

Each idea is explained first in Marathi (मराठी), ending with the English and Hindi exam terms, followed by the same point in exam English. UPSC Prelims is in English or Hindi, so understand it in Marathi and revise it in English.

पहिल्या भागात जीवन कुठे सर्वाधिक आहे ते पाहिले. आता तीन प्रश्न: ही संपत्ती का महत्त्वाची, तिचा नाश कशामुळे होतो आणि तिचे रक्षण कसे करतो. घरात सोने असेल तर त्याची किंमत ओळखतो, चोराची भीती जाणतो आणि कुलूप लावतो, तसेच. कोणती प्रजाती किती धोक्यात आहे हे आययूसीएन लाल यादी सांगते. (→ English: IUCN Red List · हिन्दी: आईयूसीएन रेड लिस्ट)

In exam EnglishPart 1 showed where life is richest. This part asks why that richness matters, what is destroying it and how it is protected. It runs in a line: the value of biodiversity, including the services ecosystems perform for free; the forces that push species towards extinction and the record of past extinctions; the IUCN Red List that measures the danger; and the two families of conservation, protecting life where it lives and saving it elsewhere, with the Indian institutions that do this work.

आपण निसर्गाकडून थेट घेतो ते: अन्न, औषधे, लाकूड, मध, मासे. आज शेतात पिकणारा भात कधीकाळी रानटी वनस्पती होता. तापावरचे क्विनाइन सिंकोनाच्या सालीतून आले; सदाफुलीसारख्या रोपातून कर्करोगाची औषधे मिळतात. जंगलाला एक मोठे औषधांचे दुकान समजा, ज्यातील अनेक कप्पे अजून उघडलेलेच नाहीत. (→ English: direct value; bioprospecting · हिन्दी: प्रत्यक्ष मूल्य; जैव पूर्वेक्षण)

In exam EnglishThe plainest value of biodiversity is what people take from it directly. Every crop and farm animal was once wild, and the wild relatives of crops still carry genes for resisting pests, drought and disease. Many medicines started as chemicals made by plants. Quinine, long the main drug against malaria, came from the bark of the cinchona tree; aspirin traces its origin to salicin, a compound in willow bark; and the Madagascar periwinkle is the plant source of vincristine and vinblastine, two drugs used to treat cancer. Searching living things for new drugs, genes and products is called bioprospecting, and species-rich countries have demanded a fair share of the gains, a principle the Convention on Biological Diversity accepts. Timber, fibre, fuelwood, honey, resins and fish complete the list, and many forest and coastal communities in India live on them.

डोळ्यांना न दिसता निसर्ग करतो ती कामे म्हणजे परिसंस्था सेवा. गावचा तलाव आठवा: पाणी देतो (पुरवठा), पुराचे पाणी अडवतो (नियमन), सणाला तिथे स्नान आणि पूजा (सांस्कृतिक), आत माती आणि पोषक द्रव्ये फिरत राहतात (आधारभूत). याचे कोणी बिल पाठवत नाही, पण हे गेले तर आपल्यालाच मोठा खर्च करावा लागतो. (→ English: ecosystem services · हिन्दी: पारिस्थितिकी तंत्र सेवाएँ)

In exam EnglishLess visible, and far larger in value, is the work ecosystems do without being asked. These benefits are called ecosystem services. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a global study backed by the United Nations and published in 2005, sorted them into four groups. Provisioning services are the goods themselves: food, fresh water, wood and medicine. Regulating services keep conditions stable: forests hold soil and soften floods, wetlands filter water, mangroves absorb storm surges and insects pollinate crops. Cultural services are the spiritual, recreational and aesthetic meaning people find in nature, from a sacred grove to a tiger safari. Supporting services such as soil formation, nutrient cycling and photosynthesis underlie all the rest. Beside these uses stands an ethical argument: each species is the result of a long evolutionary history, and many hold that humans have no right to end it.

एक जुनी बाज आठवा: विणीतून एकेक दोरा ओढत गेलात तर आधी काही कळत नाही, एके दिवशी अचानक खचते. कोपऱ्याचा पाय निखळला तर लगेच कोसळते. जंगलात प्रत्येक प्रजाती एक दोरा; कीस्टोन प्रजाती तो कोपऱ्याचा पाय. जितक्या जास्त प्रजाती, तितकी परिसंस्था भक्कम आणि स्थिर. (→ English: rivet popper hypothesis; keystone species · हिन्दी: रिवेट पॉपर परिकल्पना; कीस्टोन प्रजाति)

In exam EnglishDoes it matter if a few species vanish from a rich ecosystem? The Stanford ecologist Paul Ehrlich answered with an image. Think of the many thousands of rivets that fasten an aircraft together. Removing them one by one might cause no visible trouble for a while, but sooner or later the aircraft becomes unsafe to fly, and losing a rivet that holds a wing matters far more than losing several from a passenger seat. Each lost species likewise weakens an ecosystem a little, and the loss of a keystone species can bring on a collapse. This is the rivet popper hypothesis. Experiments back the broad idea: in long-running grassland plots in Minnesota, the American ecologist David Tilman found that plots with more species showed smaller swings in total plant growth from year to year. Diversity works like insurance for an ecosystem.

प्रजाती नष्ट होण्याची चार मोठी कारणे. घर पाडले (जंगलतोड) किंवा घराचे तुकडे केले तर हत्तीसारख्या मोठ्या प्राण्याला जागा पुरत नाही. विहिरीत पाणी झिरपते त्यापेक्षा वेगाने उपसले तर विहीर आटते, तसेच अतिशिकार. बाहेरून आलेले गाजरगवत, जलपर्णी यांसारख्या आक्रमक प्रजाती आपल्या वनस्पतींना दाबतात. एक प्रजाती गेली की तिच्यावर अवलंबून असणाऱ्याही जातात. (→ English: evil quartet; habitat fragmentation; invasive species; co-extinction · हिन्दी: दुष्ट चौकड़ी; आवास विखंडन; आक्रामक प्रजाति; सह-विलोपन)

In exam EnglishThe geographer and biologist Jared Diamond grouped the chief causes of extinction into an 'evil quartet'. First and worst is habitat loss and fragmentation: clearing a forest or draining a wetland removes homes outright, and cutting a large habitat into small patches hurts most the animals that need wide ranges, such as elephants and tigers. Second is overexploitation, harvesting faster than a population can recover; Steller's sea cow was hunted out within about thirty years of its discovery, and the passenger pigeon, once abundant across North America, ended with the death of the last bird in a zoo in 1914. Third come invasive species: after the Nile perch was introduced into Lake Victoria, a large number of the lake's native cichlid species disappeared, and in India lantana, parthenium and water hyacinth smother native plants. Fourth is co-extinction, where a species takes its dependants with it, such as its own parasites or a plant served by a single pollinator. Pollution and climate change now add to all four.

प्रजाती हळूहळू जाणे आणि नव्या येणे नैसर्गिक आहे, गावात वडीलधारे जातात आणि मुले जन्मतात तसे. पण पाच वेळा मोठी आपत्ती येऊन अनेक प्रजाती एकाच वेळी नष्ट झाल्या; हेच सामूहिक विलोपन. शेवटचे 6.6 कोटी वर्षांपूर्वी, डायनोसॉर संपले तेव्हा. आता सहावे सुरू आहे असे शास्त्रज्ञ म्हणतात, या वेळी कारण माणूसच. आपल्या देशात चित्ता 1952 मध्ये नाहीसा झाला. (→ English: background extinction; mass extinction · हिन्दी: पृष्ठभूमि विलोपन; सामूहिक विलोपन)

In exam EnglishExtinction in itself is natural. Species have always disappeared at a slow background rate as conditions shifted, while new ones arose. Five times, though, extinction has swept away a large share of all species within a short span of geological time; these are the five mass extinction events. The largest closed the Permian period about 252 million years ago, when most marine species died out. The best known, about 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous, ended the non-bird dinosaurs and is tied to an asteroid impact. Many scientists now describe a sixth mass extinction under way, caused this time by a single species, our own. The 2019 global assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) estimated that about one million animal and plant species face extinction, many within decades. India's own loss is the cheetah, declared extinct in the country in 1952; cheetahs from Namibia were released in Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh, in September 2022.

The five mass extinctions
Event	About how long ago	What stands out
End-Ordovician	444 million years	Mostly marine life; linked to glaciation
Late Devonian	372 million years	Reef-building life hit hard
End-Permian	252 million years	The largest; most marine species lost
End-Triassic	201 million years	Opened the way for the dinosaurs
End-Cretaceous	66 million years	Non-bird dinosaurs ended; asteroid impact

रुग्णालयात रुग्णांना स्थितीनुसार वॉर्डात ठेवतात तसे आययूसीएन लाल यादी प्रजातींचे वर्ग करते: अतिदक्षता विभागातील (अतिसंकटग्रस्त), गंभीर (संकटग्रस्त), काळजी हवी (असुरक्षित). माळढोक आणि घडियाल अतिदक्षतेत; वाघ गंभीर; एकशिंगी गेंडा काळजीत. हा फक्त डॉक्टरांचा अहवाल आहे, कायदा नाही; आपल्या देशात कायदेशीर संरक्षण 1972 चा वन्यजीव कायदा देतो. (→ English: IUCN Red List; Critically Endangered; Endangered; Vulnerable · हिन्दी: आईयूसीएन रेड लिस्ट; गंभीर रूप से संकटग्रस्त; संकटग्रस्त; सुभेद्य)

In exam EnglishHow close a species stands to extinction is judged by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Founded in 1948, with its headquarters at Gland in Switzerland, the IUCN is unusual in having both governments and non-governmental organisations as members. The Red List, begun in 1964, assigns each assessed species to one of nine categories using measurable tests, such as the speed of population decline, the size of the range and the number of mature individuals left. Only three categories, Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable, are counted as 'threatened'. Indian examples fix the scale: the great Indian bustard and the gharial are Critically Endangered, the tiger is Endangered and the greater one-horned rhinoceros is Vulnerable. The list is a scientific assessment and has no legal force; in India, legal protection comes from the schedules of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.

IUCN Red List categories, from most to least at risk
Code	Category	Meaning
EX	Extinct	No reasonable doubt the last individual has died
EW	Extinct in the Wild	Survives only in captivity or cultivation
CR	Critically Endangered	Extremely high risk of extinction in the wild (threatened)
EN	Endangered	Very high risk (threatened)
VU	Vulnerable	High risk (threatened)
NT	Near Threatened	Close to qualifying for a threatened category
LC	Least Concern	Widespread and abundant
DD	Data Deficient	Too little information to judge
NE	Not Evaluated	Not yet assessed

स्वस्थानी संवर्धन म्हणजे प्राण्याला त्याच्या स्वतःच्या घरात, म्हणजे जंगलातच, वाचवणे; घर आणि शेजार दोन्ही मिळून. कायदा येण्याआधीच आपल्या गावांनी हे केले: देवाच्या नावाने सोडलेल्या देवराईत कोणी झाड तोडत नाही, म्हणून तिथे जुनी झाडे आणि दुर्मीळ वनस्पती अजून आहेत. राजस्थानच्या बिश्नोईंनी खेजडीच्या झाडांसाठी प्राण दिले. (→ English: in situ conservation; sacred grove · हिन्दी: स्वस्थाने संरक्षण; पवित्र उपवन)

In exam Englishin situ conservation means protecting species in their natural homes, together with the ecosystems they depend on. It is generally preferred because it saves whole communities at once and lets species go on evolving in natural conditions. In India its main legal form is the network of protected areas, national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, conservation reserves and community reserves, along with tiger reserves and biosphere reserves, which the next chapter covers. But in situ conservation is older than any statute. All over India, communities have left patches of forest untouched as sacred groves dedicated to a local deity: they go by many local names, for example kavu in Kerala, devrai in Maharashtra, law kyntang in Meghalaya and sarna in Jharkhand, and many still hold old trees and rare plants lost from the land around them. The Bishnoi community of Rajasthan guards khejri trees and blackbuck; in 1730 Amrita Devi and many others of the community were killed at Khejarli while resisting the felling of khejri trees.

परस्थानी संवर्धन म्हणजे प्रजातीला तिच्या घराबाहेर, प्राणिसंग्रहालयात, बागेत, पेढीत वाचवणे. घरात सगळे आजारी पडले की मुलांना काही दिवस नातेवाइकांकडे पाठवतो तसे. शेतकरी चांगले बियाणे पुढच्या वर्षासाठी कणगीत जपतो, तशीच जनुक पेढी बिया थंडीत जपून ठेवते. डायक्लोफेनॅक औषधामुळे गिधाडे घटल्यावर पिंजोरला त्यांचे प्रजनन केले जाते. (→ English: ex situ conservation; gene bank; cryopreservation · हिन्दी: परस्थाने संरक्षण; जीन बैंक; क्रायोसंरक्षण)

In exam Englishex situ conservation means keeping species alive outside their natural habitat, usually because the wild population is too small or too threatened to last on its own. Zoos, botanical gardens and safari parks hold living animals and plants, and captive breeding can raise numbers for release. India's vulture breeding centre at Pinjore in Haryana was started after three Gyps vulture species crashed, poisoned by the painkiller diclofenac in the carcasses of treated cattle. For plants and genetic material, storage is the main tool. Seed banks keep dried seeds cold for decades; field gene banks grow living collections of crops that cannot be kept as seed; and cryopreservation holds sperm, eggs, embryos, pollen or tissue in liquid nitrogen at about minus 196 °C. The National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) in New Delhi runs India's national gene bank. Globally, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, cut into a mountain on a Norwegian Arctic island and opened in 2008, keeps back-up copies of seed from gene banks worldwide.

घरातील संपत्ती किती हे कळायला हिशेबाची वही लागते. वनस्पतींचा हिशेब भारतीय वनस्पती सर्वेक्षण (1890) आणि प्राण्यांचा हिशेब भारतीय प्राणी सर्वेक्षण (1916) ठेवते, दोन्ही कोलकात्यात. कायद्याप्रमाणे तीन पायऱ्या: वर चेन्नईत राष्ट्रीय प्राधिकरण, मध्ये राज्य मंडळ, खाली गावची समिती, जी गावच्या वनस्पती, प्राणी आणि जुन्या जाणकारांचे ज्ञान एका नोंदवहीत लिहिते. (→ English: Botanical Survey of India; Zoological Survey of India; National Biodiversity Authority; People's Biodiversity Register · हिन्दी: भारतीय वनस्पति सर्वेक्षण; भारतीय प्राणि सर्वेक्षण; राष्ट्रीय जैव विविधता प्राधिकरण; लोक जैव विविधता रजिस्टर)

In exam EnglishWhat India knows about its living wealth rests largely on two old survey bodies. The Botanical Survey of India, set up in 1890, explores and documents the country's plants, and the Zoological Survey of India, founded in 1916, does the same for animals; both are headquartered in Kolkata and publish the official counts of Indian flora and fauna. The Wildlife Institute of India at Dehradun, established in 1982, trains wildlife managers and conducts research. To carry out India's duties under the Convention on Biological Diversity, Parliament passed the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. It created three tiers: the National Biodiversity Authority, set up in 2003 and based in Chennai; State Biodiversity Boards; and Biodiversity Management Committees in local bodies, which prepare People's Biodiversity Registers recording local species and traditional knowledge.

एकूण तीन प्रश्न: का वाचवायचे (अन्न, औषधे, मोफत सेवा, स्थैर्य), धोका कशाचा (घर जाणे, अतिशिकार, बाहेरच्या प्रजाती, एक गेली की दुसरी), कसे वाचवायचे (आययूसीएन लाल यादी ने धोका मोजणे, घरातच संरक्षण, बाहेर राखीव साठा). प्राणिसंग्रहालयात वाढवलेल्या गिधाडाला परत जाण्यासाठी सुरक्षित आकाश नसेल तर उपयोग नाही, दोन्ही एकत्र काम करायला हवेत. (→ English: in situ and ex situ conservation; IUCN Red List · हिन्दी: स्वस्थाने और परस्थाने संरक्षण; आईयूसीएन रेड लिस्ट)

In exam EnglishThe part answers three linked questions. Why save biodiversity? Because it feeds and heals people, its services are worth far more than its goods, and, like rivets in an aeroplane, each species steadies the whole. What threatens it? The evil quartet, now joined by pollution and climate change, driving what many call a sixth mass extinction. How is it protected? The IUCN Red List measures the risk; in situ conservation guards species in their homes through protected areas and community traditions such as sacred groves; ex situ conservation keeps a reserve in zoos, gardens, seed and gene banks. The two approaches complement each other: a vulture bred in captivity is of little use without safe skies and carcasses free of poison to return to.

Exam traps

Jared Diamond's 'evil quartet' has four members: the loss and breaking-up of habitats, over-harvesting, alien invaders (invasive species) and CO-EXTINCTION. Pollution and climate change are serious but are not among the original four.
The rivet popper image comes from Paul EHRLICH; the long-term grassland plots of David Tilman supplied the evidence that species-rich plots are more stable in productivity.
Only CR, EN and VU are 'threatened' categories. Near Threatened, Least Concern and Data Deficient are NOT threatened.
Extinct in the Wild (EW) is not Extinct (EX): an EW species still survives in captivity or cultivation.
The IUCN Red List has NO legal force; legal protection in India comes from the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. IUCN is headquartered at Gland, Switzerland, not Geneva.
IN SITU means inside the natural habitat: sacred groves, national parks, biosphere reserves. EX SITU means outside it: zoos, botanical gardens, seed and gene banks, and cryopreservation.
The largest mass extinction was the END-PERMIAN (about 252 million years ago), not the end-Cretaceous that ended the dinosaurs.
India's national gene bank is run by the NBPGR, New Delhi; the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is in NORWAY.

Recap

Direct values: food, medicine (quinine, aspirin's origin in willow, vincristine from periwinkle), fibre, timber; bioprospecting.
Ecosystem services (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005): provisioning, regulating, cultural, supporting.
Rivet popper hypothesis (Paul Ehrlich): each lost species weakens the ecosystem; Tilman showed diversity stabilises productivity.
Evil quartet (Jared Diamond): habitat loss and fragmentation, overexploitation, invasive species, co-extinction.
Five mass extinctions; the end-Permian (about 252 million years ago) was the largest; many speak of a sixth, caused by humans (IPBES 2019: about one million species at risk).
Cheetah declared extinct in India in 1952; cheetahs from Namibia released in Kuno National Park in September 2022.
IUCN (1948, Gland); Red List (1964); nine categories; CR, EN and VU are threatened; no legal force.
In situ: protected areas, sacred groves (devrai, kavu, sarna, law kyntang), Bishnoi tradition. Ex situ: zoos, gardens, captive breeding (Pinjore vultures), seed and gene banks, cryopreservation at about minus 196 °C.
NBPGR runs the national gene bank; Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norway, 2008).
BSI (1890) and ZSI (1916), both Kolkata; WII Dehradun (1982); NBA Chennai (2003), State Biodiversity Boards, BMCs and People's Biodiversity Registers.

Practice questions

Q1. Which one of the following is NOT one of the four causes of extinction grouped by Jared Diamond as the 'evil quartet'?

Habitat loss and fragmentation
Co-extinction
Climate change
Invasive alien species

Show answer

Answer: C. Climate change

The evil quartet is habitat loss and fragmentation, overexploitation, invasive species and co-extinction, so options 1, 2 and 4 are part of it. Climate change is now a major threat but was not one of Diamond's original four.

Q2. Consider the following IUCN Red List categories:
1. Vulnerable
2. Near Threatened
3. Endangered
4. Data Deficient
Which of the above are counted as 'threatened' categories?

1 and 3 only
1, 2 and 3 only
2 and 4 only
1, 2, 3 and 4

Show answer

Answer: A. 1 and 3 only

Only Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable are threatened, so of these only 1 and 3. Near Threatened is close to, but outside, the threatened group, which rules out options 2 and 4; Data Deficient means there is too little information to place the species, which rules out options 3 and 4.

Q3. Which of the following is an example of in situ conservation?

A seed bank
A sacred grove
Cryopreservation of embryos
A botanical garden

Show answer

Answer: B. A sacred grove

A sacred grove protects species in their natural habitat, which is in situ. A seed bank, cryopreservation and a botanical garden all keep species or their genetic material outside the natural habitat, so they are ex situ.

Q4. Consider the following statements:
1. The IUCN Red List is legally binding on member countries.
2. The IUCN has both governments and non-governmental organisations as its members.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

1 only
2 only
Both 1 and 2
Neither 1 nor 2

Show answer

Answer: B. 2 only

Statement 1 is wrong: the Red List is a scientific assessment with no legal force, so options 1 and 3 fail. Statement 2 is right, so option 4 fails as well.

Q5. The 'rivet popper hypothesis', which compares species in an ecosystem to rivets in an aeroplane, was put forward by

Norman Myers
Paul Ehrlich
Robert Whittaker
Alexander von Humboldt

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Answer: B. Paul Ehrlich

Paul Ehrlich proposed the rivet popper hypothesis. Norman Myers proposed biodiversity hotspots, Robert Whittaker the alpha, beta and gamma measures of diversity, and Humboldt is linked with the species–area relationship.

Q6. Match List I with List II:
List I (Body) — List II (Headquarters)
A. Botanical Survey of India — 1. Chennai
B. National Biodiversity Authority — 2. Dehradun
C. Wildlife Institute of India — 3. Kolkata
Select the correct answer using the code below.

A-3, B-1, C-2
A-1, B-3, C-2
A-3, B-2, C-1
A-2, B-1, C-3

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Answer: A. A-3, B-1, C-2

BSI is in Kolkata, the NBA in Chennai and WII in Dehradun, giving A-3, B-1, C-2. Option 2 puts BSI in Chennai, option 3 swaps the NBA and WII, and option 4 puts BSI in Dehradun and WII in Kolkata.

Q7. Consider the following statements:
1. The largest of the five mass extinctions occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period.
2. The cheetah was declared extinct in India in 1952.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

1 only
2 only
Both 1 and 2
Neither 1 nor 2

Show answer

Answer: B. 2 only

Statement 1 is wrong: the largest was the end-Permian, about 252 million years ago; the end-Cretaceous is the best known because it ended the non-bird dinosaurs. That rules out options 1 and 3. Statement 2 is correct, which rules out option 4.

Q8. In ex situ conservation, cryopreservation of sperm, embryos or tissue is usually done in

Liquid nitrogen at about minus 196 °C
Dry ice at about minus 78 °C
An ordinary refrigerator at about 4 °C
Liquid oxygen at about minus 100 °C

Show answer

Answer: A. Liquid nitrogen at about minus 196 °C

Cryopreservation uses liquid nitrogen at about minus 196 °C. Dry ice is far less cold and used for transport, a refrigerator only slows decay for a short time, and liquid oxygen is neither used for this nor liquid at minus 100 °C.

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Sources

Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change: India's national reports to the Convention on Biological Diversity and the National Biodiversity Action Plan; Botanical Survey of India and Zoological Survey of India material on India's flora, fauna and endemism — https://moef.gov.in
Convention on Biological Diversity, 1992 (text), and the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 — https://www.cbd.int/convention/text
Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change: National Wildlife Action Plan and material on threatened species and the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 — https://moef.gov.in
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), Ecosystems and Human Well-being: categories of ecosystem services and drivers of biodiversity change — https://www.millenniumassessment.org
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: categories and criteria; IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (2019) — https://www.iucnredlist.org
ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources: the National Genebank, seed storage, field genebanks and cryopreservation — https://nbpgr.ernet.in