Assessment of antimutagenic avenue and wild plant diversity on roadside near Nature Park, Kolkata, India

The study of diversity of plants in an urban area is a suitable measure of the terrestrial ecosystem. The study of avenue and wild plants diversity is an important research work, which provides knowledge about naturally occurring chemicals in plants, to protect against mutation, cancer and other diseases. These are commonly called as phytochemicals and the natural chemical ingredients are potent to use in antimutagenicity. The present study aims to understand the occurrence and population nos. of different avenue and wild plants planted or natural on roadside near Nature Park, Kolkata, India. The results clearly indicate that a total population of these plant species are having 282 nos. in the study area. Various literatures clearly revealed that these plants and/or their parts have potent antimutagenic properties by the presence of several phytochemicals. In conclusion, present preliminary research emphasizes an occurrence of antimutagenic avenue and wild plants on roadsides, containing natural chemical ingredients. Previous research works confirmed that toxins or mutagens or carcinogens may cause mutation that leads to cancer. The present study is a preliminary assessment of antimutagenic avenue and wild plant species diversity that have not yet been studied in that particular geographical area. The present study also suggested that avenue and wild plants are suitable for antimutagenic potential along with aesthetical view of human as well as ecosystem support. Therefore, biodiversity study, phytochemicals estimation and conservation of these particular plant species and/or different antimutagenic species in other local area viz. roadsides, parks, forests etc. might be relevant because the plant species can be used for herbal medicine in human healthcare as well as to prevent mutation and cancer.


INTRODUCTION
Plants produce naturally occurring antimutagenic compounds viz. flavonoids, phenolics, coumarins, carotenoids, antraquinones, tannins, saponins, etc. that have protective effects against mutagens. Natural antimutagens from edible and medicinal plants are of particular importance because they are preventive for human cancer (Sanjib, 2011) and also  LTD, 2015 genotoxicity prevention (Talapatra et al. 2010). Even for populations using herbs traditionally, encouraging the use of species with chemopreventive actions could be helpful as a part of life expectancy improvement strategies: costs are significantly low, herbs have usually little or no toxicity during long-term oral administration and are relatively available at large scale (Satish et al., 2013). It has been suggested that regular consumption of anticarcinogens and antimutagens in the diet may be the most effective way of preventing human cancer and search for novel antimutagens acting in chemoprevention is a promising arena in phytotherapy (Gowri and Chinnaswamy, 2011). According to Turner et al. (2007), biodiversity study has been shown to be inequitably distributed across cities, potentially due to micro level variation in vegetation and other biological resources. Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has prescribed avenue trees for the aesthetic views and air pollution control. Although roadside trees perform ecological functions such as sequestering carbon, reducing summer cooling costs, removing airborne pollutants, and controlling stormwater runoff (Rowntree and Nowak 1991;McPherson 1994;Nowak 1994;Qi et al. 1998; Beckett et al. 2000). Beside these, avenue trees and other common plant species have potent antimutagenic properties (Agarwal and Pandey, 2009;Satwinderjeet et al. 2010;Sanjib, 2011;Satish et al., 2013;Espanha et al., 2014;Joselin et al., 2014). Numerous studies from four decades have been out in order to identify compounds, which might protect humans against DNA-damage and its consequences (DeFlora and Ramel, 1988). Many plant species are known to elicit antimutagenes is and thus have a full range of prospective applications in human healthcare (Satish et al., 2013). The diversity of different plant species as avenue trees, peripheral trees for greenbelt, trees in particular park etc. have already been documented nationally and internationally (Benthal, 1946;Chakraverty and Jain, 1984;McPherson and Rowntree, 1989;Galvin, 1999;Mukhopadhyay and Chakraverty, 2008;Zainudin et al., 2012) but no one has attempted to study the diversity of antimutagenic avenue trees and other plant species on both sides of the road. The present study aims to know the qualitative and quantitative assessment of antimutagenic plant diversity of avenue and wild plant species located on roadside near Nature park, Kolkata, India.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study area was selected at both sides of the road near Nature park (latitude = 22° 31´ N and longitude = 88° 17´ E), Kolkata, India. The field study was carried out in the month of August 2014 and September 2014 (monsoon season). The qualitative and quantitative assessment was done by 900 meter line transect and the antimutagenic plant species variety and individual number of species was evaluated as described by the methods of Jaenson et al. (1992). Field survey was done by identifying and counting the plant species and visual identification and finally image capture in this study.
The diversity of avenue and wild plant species were studied by qualitative and quantitative assessment as antimutagenic species. The usage of parts of the plants and their antimutagenic phytochemicals were studied from various literatures and tabulated. The number of each species observed was tabulated and statistical analysis was carried out using Microsoft Excel sheets. Relative abundances were calculated and tabulated separately for individual plant species. Species richness, Index of Dominance, Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index, and Evenness Index for both plant species for above-mentioned selected sites were calculated by using the following statistical formulae (Stiling, 1999):

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Relative abundance (Pi) Where, Pi is proportion of species i relative to the total number of species, and lnPi is natural logarithm of this proportion.

Evenness index Species Evenness = H'/ ln (S)
Where, H' is Shannon Diversity Index; S is Species Richness (number of species), and ln (S) is natural logarithm of species Richness.
In Table 1

DISCUSSION
The present study of antimutagenic plants diversity near Nature park indicates that these avenue and wild plants contain potent phytochemicals. This study is a preliminary observation on roadside avenue as well as wild plants having antimutagenic potential and can be used in herbal medicine.
Biodiversity study has been shown to be inequitably distributed across cities, potentially due to micro level variation in vegetation and other biological resources (Turner et al., 2007). The plants diversity study in parks, forests, industrial vicinity, roadsides etc. (Schroeder and Cannon, 1983;Ulrich, 1985;Heisler, 1986 In Table 1, the plant diversity near Nature park, Kolkata, India was studied and tabulated. The present study showed the varieties of avenue and wild plants that have potent antimutagenic phytochemicals after detailed study of various literatures. It was observed that highest numbers of plant species were 53 nos. of Ficus racemosa and lowest number was 01 no. of Ziziphus jujuba and Hibiscus mutabilis, followed by in a descending order such as 46 nos. of Peltophorum pterocarpum, 27 Table 1, the parts of the avenue and wild plants and their potent active phytochemicals as antimutagenic and/or anti-carcinogenic and/or antioxidant properties were tabulated from various research works. It was studied that Eucalyptus sp. has potent phytochemicals like 1,8-Epoxyp-menthane, tannin, flavonoids and phenolic compounds found in leaves, stump barks and woods (Juergens et

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For Shanon-Weiner diversity index, a value of 2.582 was observed, which indicate high diversity of antimutagenic plant species (Table 2). To know the diversity of antimutagenic plant species as an opportunity to obtain phytochemicals from avenue and wild plants' origin, further research work might be helpful in relation to medicinal plant diversity in other roadsides, parks, local forests along with the protection of plant species and their phytochemicals for the usage in herbal medicine. As there is no previous study of this avenue and wild plant species on the antimutagenic potential with specific tree species at this particular geographical area.

CONCLUSIONS
In the present study it was concluded that the variety and numbers of avenue and wild plant species are suitable for antimutagenic potential by their natural chemical ingredients as phytochemicals (Joselin et al., 2014). As we know from the previous research work that toxins or mutagens or carcinogens may cause mutation that leads to cancer (Yoshimi et al., 2001;Talapatra et al., 2014). This study is a preliminary assessment of antimutagenic avenue and wild plant species diversity that have not yet been studied in the particular geographical area. The present study also suggested that avenue plants are suitable for antimutagenic potential along with aesthetical view of human as well as ecosystem support. Therefore, biodiversity study, phytochemicals estimation and conservation of these particular species and/or other antimutagenic species in other local area viz. roadsides, parks, forests etc. might be relevant and the plant species can be used for herbal medicine for human healthcare and also to prevent mutation and cancer.