The discovery began in May 2024, when researchers collected naturally parasitised egg masses of Heortia vitessoides from the undersides of Aquilaria sinensis leaves at a plantation in Dianbai District, Maoming. The egg masses were transferred to a controlled-environment chamber maintained at 25 degrees Celsius, 70 percent relative humidity, and a 16:8 hour light-dark photoperiod until the parasitoids emerged. A laboratory colony was then established and maintained on fresh eggs of the fall webworm, Hyphantria cunea, as a factitious host, with adult wasps provided a 10 percent honey solution. The holotype, paratypes, and all specimens used for morphological and molecular analyses are laboratory-reared descendants of this field-collected population, deposited in the Insect Collection of Xinjiang University in Urumqi, China.

Trichogramma wasps are among the most extensively studied and widely used biological control agents in the world. More than 240 species are currently recognised globally, including more than 30 recorded from China, and since the early twentieth century they have been mass-reared and released against a wide range of insect pests. Their capacity to locate host eggs and suppress pest populations before the damaging larvae emerge has contributed to widespread commercial production and field release. In China, mass-rearing and release programmes have been developed for maize, rice, cotton, vegetable crops, and forest ecosystems, with releases covering tens of millions of hectares annually. Yet accurate species identification within Trichogrammatidae remains notoriously difficult and may directly affect the selection of appropriate parasitoid species or strains for pest management.

The challenge lies in the wasps’ minute size and reduced morphology. Adults are typically only 0.2 to 1.5 millimetres long, and several external characters vary with developmental temperature and host-related nutritional conditions, making closely related species difficult to distinguish. Species identification has therefore relied heavily on characters of the male genitalia, although these characters alone may be insufficient for resolving closely related species and cryptic lineages. Integrative taxonomic approaches that combine detailed morphology with molecular markers, such as mitochondrial and nuclear sequences, are increasingly used to delimit and describe Trichogramma species, and the new study exemplifies this modern methodology.

Using six males, including the holotype, and six females for morphological examination, the researchers cleaned, macerated, dehydrated, dissected, and mounted the specimens in UV-curing resin on microscope slides before examination. Habitus images were captured using a Nikon SMZ25 stereomicroscope, slide-mounted specimens were examined with a Nikon ECLIPSE Ci compound microscope, and morphometric measurements were obtained from digital images using ImageJ software. Male genital morphology provides the primary basis for recognising the new species. The combination of straight chelate structures, gonoforceps slightly shorter than or equal to the chelate structures, a weakly developed median ventral projection, long central ridges, and an aedeagus distinctly longer than its apodemes separates Trichogramma vitessoides from its compared congeners. Among these species, it is most similar to Trichogramma raoi, but the two differ in the relative positions of the apices of the chelate structures and gonoforceps and in the relative lengths of the aedeagus and its apodemes.

DNA barcode comparisons complement the morphological evidence. Genomic DNA was extracted non-destructively from two laboratory-reared adult females, and partial mitochondrial cox1 and the D2 region of nuclear 28S rRNA were amplified and sequenced in both directions. The independently generated consensus sequences were identical in both length and nucleotide sequence for each marker. BLASTn searches of the representative cox1 sequence recovered the highest identities with two unidentified Trichogramma sequences, showing 99.37 percent and 99.16 percent identity respectively. Among named Trichogramma species, sequence identity ranged from 92.17 percent to 92.68 percent, and uncorrected cox1 p-distances between the new species and named congeners ranged from 0.0726 to 0.0812. The 28S rRNA D2 sequence also showed relatively low identity to available named Trichogramma sequences, with a maximum of 94.42 percent. Together with the diagnostic male genital characters, these molecular differences support the recognition of the sampled lineage as a distinct species.

The complete mitochondrial genome of the new species is 16,221 base pairs long and contains the typical set of 37 mitochondrial genes, comprising 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, and two ribosomal RNA genes, together with one non-coding control region. The genome has an overall A+T content of 84.4 percent, consistent with the strong A+T bias commonly reported in hymenopteran mitochondrial genomes. All 13 protein-coding genes begin with ATN start codons, 11 terminate with TAA, and nad4L and cox3 terminate with TAG. Among the sampled Trichogramma mitogenomes, the relative order of the 37 mitochondrial genes was conserved, although the strand orientation of some genes differed among species. The new species shared the same gene order and strand orientation with Trichogramma japonicum and Trichogramma ostriniae, indicating conservation of relative gene order among the sampled taxa.

Phylogenetic analyses based on the concatenated amino-acid sequences of the 13 mitochondrial protein-coding genes produced largely congruent topologies under both Bayesian inference and maximum-likelihood methods. The sampled Trichogramma species formed a well-supported clade relative to two outgroups, Pseudoligosita yasumatsui and Megaphragma viggianii. The new species was consistently recovered as the sister taxon to Trichogramma japonicum, with maximal support in both analyses, a Bayesian posterior probability of 1.00 and ultrafast bootstrap support of 100. This relationship supports the generic placement of the new species and indicates a close mitochondrial affinity between the two taxa. All 13 protein-coding genes had mean Ka/Ks ratios below 1, consistent with purifying selection across the sampled species, whereas atp8 showed the highest ratio, suggesting comparatively relaxed purifying selection and a greater tolerance of nonsynonymous substitutions.

The significance of this discovery extends beyond pure taxonomy. Repeated insecticide applications against Heortia vitessoides in Aquilaria sinensis plantations have been reported to cause residue problems that reduce the quality and market value of agarwood, making biological control agents particularly attractive for this crop. Identifying egg parasitoids associated with the pest may provide candidates for future evaluation as biological control agents acting before the damaging larval stage. Previous laboratory experiments have shown that the new parasitoid can also complete development in eggs of the fall webworm, Hyphantria cunea, suggesting some flexibility in host use that could facilitate mass-rearing. The complete mitochondrial genome expands the available genomic resources for comparative and systematic studies of Trichogramma, a genus whose economic importance is matched by its taxonomic difficulty.

Further research should assess the host range, life-history traits, mass-rearing suitability, non-target effects, and field performance of Trichogramma vitessoides before its practical application in integrated pest management. The agreement between male genital morphology, nuclear 28S divergence, and mitochondrial evidence provides complementary support for the taxonomic placement and recognition of the new species. As the demand for sustainable pest control in high-value crops like agarwood continues to grow, discoveries like this one remind us that some of the most powerful allies in agriculture are barely visible to the naked eye, waiting in the eggs of pests to be found by scientists willing to look closely enough.

Subject of Research: Integrative taxonomy of a new Trichogramma egg parasitoid wasp species from southern China

Article Title: Integrative taxonomy of Trichogramma vitessoides sp. nov. ( Hymenoptera , Trichogrammatidae ), an egg parasitoid of Heortia vitessoides from southern China

Article References: Ge, Z., Chen, L., Xian, Z., Gu, T., Yang, Z., Zhang, Y., Xin, J., & Hu, H. (2026). Integrative taxonomy of Trichogramma vitessoides sp. nov. (Hymenoptera, Trichogrammatidae), an egg parasitoid of Heortia vitessoides from southern China. ZooKeys, 1295, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1295.211266

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1295.211266

Keywords: Trichogramma vitessoides, egg parasitoid, biological control, agarwood, Aquilaria sinensis, Heortia vitessoides, integrative taxonomy, mitochondrial genome, ZooKeys, China, Integrative, taxonomy

Aquilaria malaccensis, a member of the family Thymelaeaceae, occupies a peculiar position at the intersection of commerce and conservation. The tree itself is unremarkable until it is wounded or infected by certain fungi, at which point it produces a defensive resin that saturates the wood and transforms it into agarwood, known in the trade as oudh. Demand for this resin across the Middle East and East Asia has driven centuries of harvest from wild populations, pushing the species into decline across its native Southeast Asian range and earning it a place on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. India, where the tree is cultivated most intensively in states such as Assam and Tripura, has become a focal point for both the industry and for scientific efforts to ensure that cultivation does not erode the genetic foundations of the resource it depends on.

The research, led by Ranjith Layola M. R. and Avishek Bhattacharjee of the Botanical Survey of India’s Central National Herbarium in Howrah, together with colleagues from the Botanical Survey of India headquarters in Kolkata, was conducted as part of two government-funded initiatives: a project on non-detriment findings for Aquilaria malaccensis in India financed by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and an in-house action plan on the molecular and phytochemical identification of thirty CITES-listed plants in high international trade. The team’s fieldwork spanned the major agarwood-cultivating states, gathering leaf material from plantations and forest department holdings to build a sampling frame that captures the breadth of India’s cultivated agarwood population.

At the technical heart of the study lies a class of genetic markers known as Simple Sequence Repeats, or SSRs, sometimes called microsatellites. These are short stretches of DNA in which a motif of one to six base pairs is repeated many times in tandem, such as CACACACA. Because the number of repeats at a given locus mutates rapidly and is inherited in a codominant Mendelian fashion, SSRs act as highly polymorphic signposts scattered across the genome, allowing researchers to distinguish individuals, estimate heterozygosity, and infer patterns of relatedness and population structure. The authors screened sixty SSR primer pairs drawn from previously published literature on Aquilaria malaccensis, including markers developed through genome-wide mining and next-generation sequencing efforts, and identified fifteen polymorphic markers suitable for genotyping the full set of 195 accessions.

Once the genotyping was complete, the team applied a battery of frequency-based and genetic distance-based statistics, complemented by formal population structure analysis. The results were striking in several respects. The average values of observed heterozygosity and the Shannon diversity index were high, indicating that most individuals in the sampled collection carry substantial genetic variability. This is encouraging news for a species whose wild relatives have been depleted: high heterozygosity generally signals a healthy capacity for adaptation and a reduced risk of inbreeding depression in cultivated stands. For breeders, it also means that the raw material for selection and improvement remains rich within India’s existing plantation base.

Equally informative was what the analysis revealed about how that diversity is distributed across the landscape. The researchers observed overall low genetic differentiation among populations combined with high gene flow, a pattern suggesting that planting material has been moved extensively among regions, most likely through the trade in seedlings and seeds that accompanies the expansion of agarwood cultivation. The analysis of molecular variance, or AMOVA, reinforced this picture: the largest share of genetic variance was partitioned within populations rather than among them. In practical terms, a farmer’s plantation in one state is likely to contain nearly as much genetic variation as the pooled collection from all states, a signature of a crop whose genetic stock has been thoroughly mixed by human hands rather than shaped by local isolation.

The population structure analysis added a further layer of nuance. Using the Bayesian clustering software STRUCTURE, which assigns individuals to genetic clusters based on multilocus genotype data, the team found that all 195 accessions resolved into two genetic clusters. Crucially, these clusters did not correspond to geography. Trees from the same state frequently belonged to different clusters, and individuals showed high levels of admixture, meaning their genomes carry ancestry from both clusters in varying proportions. This decoupling of genetic structure from geographic origin is consistent with a crop that has been founded from mixed sources and repeatedly exchanged among growers, and it suggests that conservation and breeding decisions cannot rely on state boundaries as proxies for genetic distinctiveness.

Why does this matter beyond the laboratory? For a CITES-listed species, the answer lies in the machinery of international regulation. Non-detriment findings, the scientific assessments that determine whether trade in a listed species can proceed without harming wild populations, depend on credible data about the status and genetic health of the resource. By documenting high within-population diversity and quantifying gene flow across India’s cultivated agarwood estate, the study provides exactly the kind of evidence base that regulators and forest departments need to design sustainable harvest and trade policies. It also feeds directly into crop improvement: knowing which individuals and clusters harbor the greatest diversity allows breeders to design crosses that preserve variability while selecting for traits such as resin yield and quality, the economic lifeblood of the industry.

The findings also carry a cautionary dimension. High gene flow and admixture, while beneficial for genetic health, can homogenize locally adapted variation if unchecked, and the absence of clear geographic structure means that unique genetic lineages could be silently lost if planting programs favor a narrow set of commercially popular stock. The authors’ dataset, with allele fragment length matrices and primer details provided in the supplementary materials, offers a practical toolkit for future monitoring, enabling plantation managers and researchers to track whether diversity is being maintained as the industry expands. The work was supported by the Botanical Survey of India’s research facilities, and the authors acknowledge the cooperation of forest departments and plantation owners across the sampling regions.

Agarwood occupies a rare position among industrial crops: it is simultaneously a global luxury commodity, a livelihood for thousands of smallholder farmers, and a species whose trade is scrutinized under one of the world’s most stringent conservation treaties. The new study demonstrates that India’s cultivated agarwood trees still hold a deep reservoir of genetic diversity, but that this diversity is woven into a thoroughly mixed, human-mediated landscape rather than organized into neat geographic populations. As demand for oudh continues to rise and cultivation spreads, the genetic map drawn by this research will serve as a baseline against which the future health of the crop, and the sustainability of the trade built upon it, can be measured.

Subject of Research: Genetic diversity and population structure of the CITES-listed agarwood tree Aquilaria malaccensis in India assessed with microsatellite markers

Article Title: Genetic diversity analysis in Aquilaria malaccensis (Agarwood) in India, a CITES-listed industrial crop using microsatellite markers

Article References: Layola M. R., R., Kushwaha, P. S., Mallick, B., Chakraborty, S., Banu, F., Shaw, R., Chakraborty, O., Sengupta, S., Chakraborty, S., Bandyopadhyay, S., Sardar, S., Shil, T., Mao, A. A., & Bhattacharjee, A. (2026). Genetic diversity analysis in Aquilaria malaccensis (Agarwood) in India, a CITES-listed industrial crop using microsatellite markers. Indian Journal of Genetics and Plant Breeding, 86(2), 252-255. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44489-026-00019-y

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44489-026-00019-y

Keywords: Aquilaria malaccensis, agarwood, genetic diversity, microsatellite markers, SSR, CITES, population structure, heterozygosity, gene flow, India, crop improvement, conservation

The study, published in Food Science and Biotechnology by researchers at Dongguk University-Seoul together with colleagues from the research and business development center of Kwangdong Pharmaceutical, focuses on a family of sesquiterpene alcohols known as eudesmols. Three isomers, α-, β- and γ-eudesmol, share the same molecular formula but differ in the arrangement of their atoms, and all three contribute to the complex woody, balsamic character of agarwood resin. Because they are abundant, characteristic and chemically stable components of the resin’s volatile fraction, the team proposed them as quantitative markers of quality, replacing subjective sensory judgment with hard numbers from an instrument.

The analytical strategy unfolded in two stages. First, the researchers characterized what was actually in the samples. They took nine agarwood resin samples originating from Indonesia and analyzed their volatile compounds using headspace solid-phase microextraction coupled with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, a technique abbreviated HS-SPME-GC/MS. In this method, a thin coated fiber is suspended above the sample to absorb aroma compounds from the headspace, then inserted into a gas chromatograph where the molecules are separated and identified by their mass spectra. The profiling revealed that major sesquiterpenes, including compounds related to selinene and eudesmol, dominated the volatile profile, and these were tentatively characterized by matching their mass spectra against spectral libraries.

Identification alone, however, is not enough for quality control. Mass spectral library matching can tell you what a compound probably is, but it cannot reliably tell you how much of it is present, because mass spectrometry signals vary with ionization efficiency and instrument conditions. For that, the researchers turned to gas chromatography with flame ionization detection, or GC-FID, a workhorse quantitative technique in which separated compounds are burned in a hydrogen flame and the resulting ions produce a current proportional to the amount of carbon arriving at the detector. Flame ionization detection is prized for its stability, wide linear range and excellent precision, making it the method of choice when numbers must stand up to regulatory scrutiny.

The team established and validated a GC-FID method for quantifying the three eudesmol isomers, following internationally recognized analytical validation principles. The performance figures were striking. The method showed excellent linearity, with a coefficient of determination, R², of 1.000 across the calibrated range, meaning the detector response rose in a perfectly straight-line relationship with concentration. Repeatability, expressed as the relative standard deviation of repeated measurements within a single day, was better than 2.7 percent, indicating that the method delivers essentially the same answer every time it is run under the same conditions.

Accuracy was assessed through spike-and-recovery experiments, in which known amounts of each eudesmol isomer were added to samples at three different concentrations and the measured recovery was compared with the expected value. Recovery rates fell within a narrow and reassuring band: 101.9 to 102.8 percent for γ-eudesmol, 101.4 to 101.7 percent for α-eudesmol, and 98.9 to 101.3 percent for β-eudesmol. Values close to 100 percent mean the method neither systematically overestimates nor underestimates the true content, and the tight ranges across concentration levels suggest the assay behaves consistently whether eudesmols are present in small or large amounts.

When the validated method was applied to the nine Indonesian samples, the results revealed just how variable commercial agarwood can be. Total eudesmol content ranged from below the method’s limit of detection all the way up to 16.9 milligrams per gram of resin. That spread, spanning more than an order of magnitude, illustrates precisely why sensory grading has struggled to impose order on the market: samples that might look and even smell superficially similar can differ enormously in their content of the marker compounds. A single numerical measurement of eudesmol content offers buyers and regulators a way to distinguish between them that no nose can match for reproducibility.

Quality, however, is not only about potency; it is also about safety. Because agarwood is burned as incense, infused in preparations and used in food-adjacent applications, contamination with toxic elements or agricultural chemicals is a genuine concern. The researchers therefore screened their samples for heavy metals and for 514 pesticide residues, and reported that the levels found were within acceptable limits. This two-pronged approach, pairing marker quantification with a broad safety screen, mirrors the expectations of pharmacopoeial and food-safety authorities, who increasingly demand both identity and purity data for botanical raw materials.

The significance of the work extends beyond agarwood itself. Botanical and herbal raw materials are notoriously difficult to standardize because their chemistry depends on species, geography, harvest conditions and processing, and adulteration or mislabeling is a persistent problem in high-value markets. The study’s authors argue that their systematic workflow, combining qualitative volatile profiling by SPME-GC/MS, quantitative marker analysis by GC-FID, and safety screening for metals and pesticides, provides a template that can be adapted to other botanical and herbal materials. In effect, they have demonstrated a complete chain of evidence, from what a sample smells like at the molecular level to exactly how much of the key marker it contains to whether it is safe, all captured in validated instrumental measurements.

For a commodity that has been traded for centuries largely on trust, reputation and the trained senses of a few experts, the arrival of a validated chemical grading method marks a quiet but consequential shift. If eudesmol isomer content becomes an accepted benchmark, buyers could verify shipments against certificates of analysis, producers could optimize cultivation and resin-induction techniques against a measurable target, and regulators could police the market with defensible data rather than disputed opinions. The fragrance of agarwood may remain as mysterious and alluring as ever, but the question of whether a given batch is genuinely good is now, at last, something a machine can answer with a number.

Subject of Research: Objective quality evaluation of agarwood resin using eudesmol isomer quantification by gas chromatography

Article Title: Quality evaluation of agarwood achieved through the GC–FID-based quantification of eudesmol isomers identified via SPME–GC/MS

Article References: Yim, J., Park, S. Y., Park, I. B., Ahn, H., Na, W., & Lee, K.-G. (2026). Quality evaluation of agarwood achieved through the GC–FID-based quantification of eudesmol isomers identified via SPME–GC/MS. Food Science and Biotechnology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10068-026-02310-w

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s10068-026-02310-w

Keywords: agarwood, eudesmol, sesquiterpenes, GC-FID, SPME-GC/MS, quality evaluation, Aquilaria, volatile compounds, food science, analytical chemistry, botanical raw materials, heavy metals

The story of Nepali agarwood begins not with foresters or perfume merchants but with refugees. In 1990, Bhutanese refugees settling in Jhapa District carried seeds and seedlings of Aquilaria malaccensis with them, planting the species as a living reminder of home and as a speculative crop. Over the following three decades, those first plantings multiplied. Word spread among farmers that the resin-soaked wood, known as oudh or gaharu, could command extraordinary prices on international markets. Government agencies began distributing seedlings, and a quiet cultivation boom took root across the eastern plains and hills.

To chart this unfolding experiment, a large team of Nepali researchers led by Bishal Ghimire of the Ministry of Forests and Environment and Ripu Kunwar of Tribhuvan University combined three lines of evidence. Between April 2024 and June 2025, they conducted a systematic review of the literature, interviewed 101 agarwood farmers, and carried out field surveys at 38 sites spread across 10 districts of Koshi Province. The result is the most comprehensive portrait to date of a species that has become, in the authors’ words, the epicenter of agarwood cultivation in Nepal.

The geographic findings are striking. More than 30,000 agarwood trees have now been planted across eight districts, at elevations ranging from just 75 meters above sea level in the subtropical lowlands to a remarkable 2,600 meters in the hills. That vertical span, covering more than two and a half kilometers of elevation, demonstrates a bioclimatic adaptability that few tropical hardwoods can match. For a species whose wild populations are collapsing under logging pressure across Southeast Asia, the discovery of such ecological flexibility in a new range carries real conservation weight. It suggests that cultivated populations outside the native range could serve as a genetic reservoir, a living archive of a tree that the IUCN Red List classifies as critically endangered.

But the study did not stop at counting trees. The researchers measured individual specimens to estimate biomass and carbon, applying allometric models of the kind used in international carbon accounting under IPCC guidance. The numbers they obtained were eye-opening. A single 30-year-old agarwood tree in eastern Nepal had accumulated 1,585 kilograms of above-ground biomass, corresponding to a carbon stock of 745 kilograms per tree. That figure exceeds what has been reported for Malaysian plantations of comparable age, a comparison the authors attribute to favorable growing conditions and management practices in Nepal. Scaled across tens of thousands of trees, the implication is that Nepal’s young agarwood estates are functioning as a meaningful, if unheralded, carbon sink.

This carbon dimension gives the agarwood story a contemporary urgency it would not otherwise have. As Nepal pursues its national commitments on climate change, agroforestry species that combine economic value with substantial sequestration are increasingly attractive. Agarwood, the study suggests, could deliver both: farmers gain a high-value crop, while the landscape gains a dense, fast-growing tree that locks carbon into its wood for decades. Similar reasoning has driven interest in agarwood as a climate-resilient livelihood option in Indonesia, and the Nepali findings now extend that argument to the Himalayan foothills.

The ethnomedicinal side of the research adds a cultural layer to the ecological one. Through structured interviews with farmers across the province, the team documented how agarwood is used in traditional medicine, with the highest consensus recorded for treating asthma and stomach discomfort. These uses echo a pharmacological lineage that stretches back millennia, from Vedic hymns and ancient trade routes to the pharmacological tables of medieval Persian physicians. Modern laboratory studies have found anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and central nervous system effects in agarwood extracts, lending at least tentative scientific support to practices that Nepali farmers maintain today. In Koshi Province, the tree is not merely a speculative investment; it is a household remedy.

Yet the study also exposes a frustrating bottleneck. Although planting has been extensive and the government supports growers through seedling distribution and a royalty rate of 50 Nepali rupees per kilogram, formal inoculation for resin induction remains underdeveloped, and commercial production is negligible. This is the crux of the agarwood paradox: the precious resin forms only when the tree is wounded and colonized by fungi, a natural defense response that in commercial settings must be deliberately provoked through artificial inoculation techniques. In Malaysia, China and Indochina, researchers have refined fungal and chemical induction methods, some validated with tools as sophisticated as sonic tomography. In Nepal, by contrast, most farmers grow healthy trees but have no reliable way to trigger the resin that gives the wood its value. The result is a plantation estate that is, economically speaking, still waiting to be switched on.

The authors are candid about what would change that. Realizing the potential for carbon sequestration and rural livelihood improvement, they write, requires reliable inoculation techniques, farmer capacity building, and supportive value chain services. In practical terms, that means training programs that teach induction methods, extension services that connect growers with buyers, and research that adapts inoculation protocols developed elsewhere to Nepali conditions. The government’s demonstration plots for agarwood management and inoculation, run by the Department of Forest and Soil Conservation, represent a first step, but the gap between planting and production remains wide.

What emerges from this study is a portrait of an accidental success still searching for its business model. A refugee-introduced tree has spread across a Himalayan province, proven its climatic range, outperformed tropical plantations in carbon accumulation, and embedded itself in local medicine cabinets. The missing piece is the resin economy that made the species famous. If inoculation technology takes hold, Nepal’s 30,000 agarwood trees could transform from a botanical curiosity into a genuine engine of rural income and climate mitigation. If it does not, they will remain a beautiful, carbon-rich monument to an opportunity deferred. Either way, the eastern hills of Nepal have secured a place in the global story of one of the world’s most coveted woods, and scientists now have the baseline data to track what happens next.

Subject of Research: Introduction, population status, carbon stock and ethnomedicinal uses of cultivated agarwood (Aquilaria malaccensis) in Koshi Province, eastern Nepal

Article Title: Agarwood (Aquilaria malaccensis, Thymelaeaceae) in eastern Nepal: introduction, population, carbon stock, and ethnomedicinal uses

Article References: Ghimire, B., Bhattarai, R., Koirala, S., Ghimire, R., Shrestha, N., Thapa, S., Parajuli, H., Pokharel, Y. R., Adhikari, D. M., Bhattarai, S., Tamang, R., Khadka, D., Upadhyaya, A., & Kunwar, R. (2026). Agarwood (Aquilaria malaccensis, Thymelaeaceae) in eastern Nepal: introduction, population, carbon stock, and ethnomedicinal uses. Plant Biosystems, 160(5), Article 255. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44473-026-00269-4

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44473-026-00269-4

Keywords: Agarwood, Aquilaria malaccensis, Nepal, Koshi Province, carbon stock, biomass, ethnomedicine, critical endangered species, agroforestry, resin inoculation, Bhutanese refugees, Plant Biosystems