Bamboos are perennial grasses classified under family Poaceae and subfamily Bambusoideae and are rnamong the fastest growing plants on earth. Although bamboos have ecological and economic importancernin Ethiopia, scientific inquiry particularly on genomics, transcriptomics and genetic diversity and rnstructure is lacking. Ethiopian lowland bamboo (O. abyssinica) adapted in hot areas of Ethiopia hence rninquiry on global transcriptome profiling is very important to elucidate the most important genes, rntranscript factors and metabolic pathways associated to abiotic stress. To do so, plastic pot germinated rnseedlings of lowland bamboo were subjected to 200 mM NaCl and 25% PEG-6000 (Poly Ethylene rnglycol) to induce salt and drought stress, respectively. Using the Illumina sequencing platform, fifteen rncDNA libraries were constructed and sequenced to generate the first drought and salt stress global rntranscriptome profiling of the species. Following quality control, 754,444,646 clean paired-ends reads rnwere generated, and then de novo assembled into 406,181 unigenes. Functional annotation against the rnpublic databases presented annotation of 217,067 (53.4%) unigenes, where NCBI-Nr 203,777, Swissport rn115,741, COG 81,632 and KEGG 80,587. Prediction of Transcripts Factors (TFs) has generated 4,332 rnTFs organized into 64 TF families. Analysis of Differentially Expressed Genes (DEGs) provided 65,471 rngenes where 569 genes belongs to all stresses. Transcript factors (TFs) with a higher number ofrndifferentially expressed genes include bZIP (49), WRKY (43), MYB (38), AP2/ERF (30), HD-ZIP (25) rnand MYB related (21).rn rnSuch 569 genes could serve for engineering plants for multiple abiotic tolerances.rnDespite the important role of bZIPs in plants, particularly in abiotic tolerances, bZIP family members and rntheir corresponding functions remain elusive in the lowland bamboo. Through genome-wide analysis, a rntotal of 162 bZIP lowland bamboo TFs having the bZIP binding domain (PF00170) were identified. For rnthe identified bZIPs, functional annotation, phylogenetic relationship and their expression under drought and salt stress were investigated. The expression profile of the bZIP TFs revealed that majority of the rnbZIPs were highly responsive to drought and salt stress as 99 of the 162 TFs were up-regulated. rnMetabolic pathway analysis revealed that environmental information processing and genetic information rnprocessing categories were the only represented pathway which implies that the bZIPs are associated to rndrought and salt stress.rnUnderstanding on the genetic diversity and structure of highland bamboo is important particularly for rnconservation. For genetic diversity analysis 150 samples, representing 15 populations, 10 samples from rneach population were collected. The sources of SSR primers were; first, primers developed through rnreduced-representation genome sequencing of lowland bamboo were checked for their polymorphism and rntransferability, then 7 primers were selected and used for highland bamboo. Second, primers were rndirectly taken from literature from Chinese Moso bamboo, after checking their transferability 9 primers rnwere used. The genetic diversity indices (H= 0.398 and I= 0.639) for the 16 SSR markers used were rnmoderate in capturing genetic variability. Both individual phylogeny and population structure merged the rn15 populations in to nine clusters, with less geographic origin or collection based pattern. UPGMA rnclustered the 15 populations in 2, while NJ clustered in to 3, however pattern of their grouping is not in rnline with their pattern of origin of collection. The principal component analysis revealed that individuals rnare highly dispersed and did not group the populations into stridently distinct clustersrn rnwhich tells the rnpresences of high genetic admixture possibly attributed to gene flow or the reproductive biology of the rnspecies. In conclusion, the RNA-Seq based global transcriptome profiling has generated transcriptomicsrnresources for lowland bamboo which can be employed for itself and related species for further research. rnMost importantly the study uncovered key stress responsive genes, transcription factors, metabolic rnpathways rn rnand even genes differentially expressed to all stress groups which could be used as the basis rnfor further studies aiming to confer plants for multiple abiotic stress tolerances. The study on bZIPs rngenome wide analysis also provided valuable information on how bZIPs are highly associated to abiotic rnstress tolerance since only pathways related to stress tolerances were represented in metabolic pathway analysis. The genetic diversity and population structure analysis of highland bamboo uncovered the rnpresences of moderate genetic variability with high genetic admixture. The information could be used as a rnbasis particularly for conservation interventions and for further investigations.