Mautam Famine

Facts for Prelims

Mautam Famine

News: Every 48-50 years, bamboo-producing states of India, of which Mizoram is one, face a famine known as 'Mautam'.

What is Mautam?
• In Mizo, mau means bamboo and tam means death.
• At a particular time, the Melocanna baccifera, a species of bamboo, undergoes flowering across a wide area during Mautam. This leads to a temporary windfall of seeds, from which the bamboo regenerates after it dies.
• Bamboo seeds are also food for rats, who consume these and multiply rapidly. As the rat population explodes and the bamboo seeds get exhausted, the rats leave the forests to forage on stored grain and destroy cultivated crops.

Why does the Bamboo flower suddenly?
• The flowering of bamboo all of a sudden every 48 years is believed to be an ecological control mechanism of predator satiation.
• Predator satiation is an anti-predator adaptation technique that has been perfected by bamboo after millions of years of predation on its seeds.
• Bamboo undergoes flowering once every half-century in huge numbers as a defence mechanism. Due to flowering in huge quantities, the rats (predators) are flooded with bamboo seeds (prey) to feast on. In this way, the bamboo satiates the predator.
• By occurring at high densities, the prey benefits from a safety-in-numbers effect. Even though most of the seeds may be eaten by rodents, enough will survive to ensure a healthy plant population.