5 Issues About Bamboo

1.Even if it looks like a tree, the bamboo is just woody perennial evergreen grass, related to cereals like wheat, corn or rice.

2.The bamboo is the plant with the fastest growth rhythm: 2-3 cm per hour, up to one meter (3.3 ft) in one day. In 5-6 weeks, a bamboo reaches the height of 18-20 m (60-66 ft). For short periods, the bamboo can reach maximal growth speeds of 40 inches (1 m) per hour.

3.The 91 genera and about 1,000 species of bamboo are associated with tropical climate, because they miss from Europe and most of North America.

But in the mountains of China, Korea and Japan, they can stand -24o C. Bamboo can be found up to 5,000 m (16,660 ft) in altitude and in East Asia, up to 50°N latitude. In Argentina and Chile, they are found at 47°S latitude.

4.Even if some bamboos flower annually, most species flower infrequently, many at intervals of 60 or 120 years. This is called mast flowering (gregarious flowering), with all bamboo in an area flowering at the same time. After flowering, bamboos die in mass.

But the mast fruiting comes with many unexpected consequences. The enormous amount of available seeds induce a boom in rat populations. As the rats turn increasingly numerous, they start attacking crops, inducing famine in local human populations.

This happened in 1954-1955 with the Melocanna bambusoides population from northeastern India, which has a mast flowering period of 30-35 years. The rats can also spread deadly diseases like typhus, typhoid, and bubonic plague.

5.99 % of the panda bear's diet is made of bamboo. An individual ingests 38 kg (90 pounds) of bamboo (shoots, stems and leaves) daily (an activity that takes around 14 hours) and eating bamboo requires some adaptations.

Pandas have wide molars and premolars (grinder teeth) and highly developed zygomatic arches (bones where chewing muscles are inserted) correlated to highly developed chewing muscles, adaptations for grinding tough bamboo stuff. They have a sixth "thumb", a bony projection of the fore paw which enables them to grip bamboo stems while eating. The esophagus is folded by a keratin layer so that it is not scratched by bamboo shafts.

Being so dependent on bamboo, the years when invasions of the bamboo Chinese rat (Rhizomys sinensis), a large subterranean rodent (40 cm (1.3 ft) long and 1 kg (2.2 pounds) heavy) take place, represent a huge challenge for the panda.




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