Summary

Prof.\\r\\nSabu has been working as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in various Sree Narayana\\r\\nColleges in Kerala for 16 years and Calicut University as Reader and Professor\\r\\nabout 20 years.  He officiated as Head of\\r\\nthe Department of Botany, University of Calicut from 2012 to 2014. During his\\r\\ntenure he organized several National and International seminars and also\\r\\nattended a number of International seminars in India and Abroad. He has more\\r\\nthan nine projects worth 2.5 crores funded by various agencies like BGCI,\\r\\nLondon, UGC, DST, DBT, MoEF & CC, KSCSTE etc. He also worked as Director,\\r\\nIQAC and Co Ordinator, NAAC of Calicut University and during this period\\r\\nUniversity of Calicut has been accredited with ‘A’ grade.  During his academic career at University of\\r\\nCalicut, he officiated as member/Chairman of UG and PG Boards of studies of\\r\\nBotany/Biophysics of different universities. He has worked as a member of the\\r\\nofficial bodies of the University like Faculty of Science and Academic council.

He\\r\\nhas been teaching taxonomy for the past 36 years for UG and PG students and\\r\\ncreating awareness of Taxonomy through organizing National and International\\r\\nseminars and workshops. He has been working on the Taxonomy of Indian\\r\\nZingiberaceae for the past 25 years. Taxonomic Revision of Indian Zingiberaceae\\r\\nis over and a Monograph would be published in 2020. A germplasm of over 190\\r\\nspecies and 2000 accessions of live plants in the ginger gene bank of Calicut\\r\\nUniversity Botanical Garden is established. This forms the largest collection\\r\\nof Indigenous gingers in India. Exotic and ornamental gingers from China,\\r\\nJapan, Thailand and Malaysia are also grown. Several research Institutions such\\r\\nas RGCB, NBPGR, IISR, CTCRI, BGIR etc make use of these collections for various\\r\\nstudies. He has over 160 papers in National and International Journals and six\\r\\nbooks to his credit. Apart from the Taxonomy, he has also dealt with aspects of\\r\\nPalynology, Cytology and Dermal Morphology, molecular aspects of all\\r\\nZingiberaceae members of South India. Dr. M. Sabu described 57 taxa new to\\r\\nScience and reported five new generic records, six new combinations, 15 new\\r\\nspecies records for India, nine for South India, and 16 name changes/synonyms.\\r\\nRediscovery of 11 taxa after 57 to 155 years, which includes some supposed to\\r\\nbe extinct taxa. The IUCN status of all Indian gingers were assessed. The\\r\\nornamental gingers are becoming more popular among horticulturists in many\\r\\ncountries. India has a rich diversity of potential ornamental gingers. The\\r\\ndomestication of ten valuable ornamental species has been made. The revision of\\r\\nIndian Musaceae and  Marantaceae was\\r\\nover. The largest germplasm of Indian Musacerae and Marantaceae is established\\r\\nin the Botanical Garden of Calicut University. Which contain more than 30 taxa\\r\\nand over 200 accessions. Musaceae Revision is progressing well with four new\\r\\ntaxa and several new records to India and rediscoveries after a lapse of 50 –\\r\\n100 years.

He\\r\\nhas also prepared a database of Indian Zingiberaceae,  Musaceae and Marantaceae and a website for the\\r\\nfirst time. The IUCN status of all Indian gingers were assessed. Indian\\r\\nBotanical Society has honored him by awarding the prestigious Prof. Panchanan Maheswari Gold Medal 2010 and Indian Association for\\r\\nAngiosperm Taxonomy with Prof. V.V.\\r\\nSivarajan Gold Medal 2014. University of Calicut had awarded Best Researcher Award 2012 for his\\r\\ncontributions in the field of Research. He has been elected as one of the\\r\\nprestigious Fellowship, Fellow of Indian National Science Academy 2019 (FNA). He\\r\\nis also Fellow of IAAT (FIAAT), IBS (FBS), and Linnean Society (FLS). As a\\r\\nhonour, four new species have been named after him viz. Amomum sabuanun V.P. Thomas et\\r\\nal., Musa\\r\\nsabuana K. Prasad, et al., Zingiber\\r\\nsabuanum KMP Kumar & A. Joe and Curculigo sabuii..

He\\r\\nhas contributed a lot to Indian Taxonomy by acting as Treasurer and Secretary\\r\\nof Indian Association for Angiosperm Taxonomy, one of the largest Taxonomy\\r\\nAssociation in India, since 2000. He is presently acting as the Secretary of\\r\\nIAAT and  Editor of the official journal\\r\\nof IAAT, Rheedea. He has been officiating as the Officer-in-charge of\\r\\nCalicut University Botanic Garden since 1999 and has developed it into one of\\r\\nthe best Botanic gardens in India. He has taken up programmes for the\\r\\nconservation of endangered taxa through MoEF & CC Project.