Pedostibes tuberculosus (Malabar tree toad) Advertisement call and distribution

Advertisement call patterns of anurans provide insights to speciation, territoriality, evolution and phylogeny as it reveals the motivation to mate and species identity. Anuran acoustics have been studied for 20 species of 113 from Western Ghats. This communication is on advertisement call, explosive breeding behaviour and distribution of Malabar tree toad, Pedostibes tuberculosus Günther, 1875 an endemic species of Western Ghats

Developmental mode in white-nosed shrub frog Philautus cf. leucorhinus

Direct development in amphibians bypassing intermediary tadpole stage has behavioural, evolutionary and ecological significance.This paper presents direct development in Philautus cf. leucorhinus, while comparing with other congeners of the Western Ghats

Influence of land use changes in river basins on diversity and distribution of amphibians

Land-use changes influence local biodiversity directly, and also cumulatively, contribute to regional and global changes in natural systems and quality of life. Consequent to these, direct impacts on the natural resources that support the health and integrity of living beings are evident in recent times. The Western Ghats being one of the global biodiversity hotspots, is reeling under a tremendous pressure from human induced changes in terms of developmental projects like hydel or thermal power plants, big dams, mining activities, unplanned agricultural practices,monoculture plantations, illegal timber logging, etc. This has led to the once contiguous forest habitats to be fragmented in patches, which in turn has led to the shrinkage of original habitat for the wildlife, change in the hydrological regime of the catchment, decreased inflow in streams,human-animal conflicts, etc. Under such circumstances, a proper management practice is called for requiring suitable biological indicators to show the impact of these changes, set priority regions and in developing models for conservation planning. Amphibians are regarded as one of the best biological indicators due to their sensitivity to even the slightest changes in the environment and hence they could be used as surrogates in conservation and management practices. They are the predominating vertebrates with a high degree of endemism (78%) in Western Ghats. The present study is an attempt to bring in the impacts of various land-uses on anuran distribution in three river basins. Sampling was carried out for amphibians during all seasons of 2003-2006 in basins of Sharavathi, Aghanashini and Bedthi. There are as many as 46 species in the region, one of which is new to science and nearly 59% of them are endemic to the Western Ghats. They belong to nine families, Dicroglossidae being represented by 14 species,followed by Rhacophoridae (9 species) and Ranidae (5 species). Species richness is high in Sharavathi river basin, with 36 species, followed by Bedthi 33 and Aghanashini 27. The impact of land-use changes, was investigated in the upper catchment of Sharavathi river basin. Species diversity indices, relative abundance values, percentage endemics gave clear indication of differences in each sub-catchment. Karl Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r) was calculated between species richness, endemics, environmental descriptors, land-use classes and fragmentation metrics. Principal component analysis was performed to depict the influence of these variables. Results show that sub-catchments with lesser percentage of forest, low canopy cover, higher amount of agricultural area, low rainfall have low species richness, less endemic species and abundant non-endemic species, whereas endemism, species richness and abundance of endemic species are more in the sub-catchments with high tree density, endemic trees, canopy cover, rainfall and lower amount of agriculture fields. This analysis aided in prioritising regions in the Sharavathi river basin for further conservation measures

Cumulative Environmental Impact Assessment

An ecosystem is a complex of interconnected living organisms inhabiting a particular area or unit of space, together with their environment and all their interrelationships and relationships with the environment having a well-maintained ecological processes and interactions. It is characterized by the abundance of individual species populations; interspecies relationships; activity of organisms; physical and chemical characteristics of environment; flows of matter, energy, and information; and description of changes of these parameters with time. Hence, its surroundings can be categorised into physical and biological environment, which are self-defined, self-maintained and self-sustained dynamic natural systems. The physical environment comprises of lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, while the living beings in the biosphere constitute biological environment

Two new fish specie of the genus Schistura McClelland (Cypriniformes: Balitoridae) from Western Ghats, India

Schistura nagodiensis an S.sharavathiensis are the new fish species described from Sharavathi river, central Western Ghats. These species are distinct from their closest congeners in Schistura, which are evident from variations in combination of characters such as processus dentiformis, barbels, bars on body, extent of lateral line with pores, marks on lower lip, ray counts, shape of caudal fin, caudal bar, adipose crest, etc. Distinct clusters of Principal Components based on morphometric variables (PCA) further substantiate that these are significantly different from their closest congeners

Fish diversity in relation to landscape and vegetation in central Western Ghats, India

The Western Ghats, one of the well-known biodiversity hotspots of the world, harbours 289 species of freshwater fish of which 119 are endemic. The ecosystems in this region have been, over the past 150 years or so, experiencing tumultuous changes due to the everincreasing human impacts. In this regard, a study was conducted in Sharavathi River, central Western Ghats to understand fish species composition with respect to landscape dynamics. The study, using a combination of remote-sensing data as well as field investigations shows that the streams having their catchments with high levels of evergreenness and endemic tree species of the Western Ghats were also richer in fish diversity and endemism, compared to those catchments with other kinds of vegetation. This illustrates that the composition and distribution of fish species have a strong association with the kind of terrestrial landscape elements and the importance of landscape approach to conservation and management of aquatic ecosystems. Occurrence of endangered, endemic species and the discovery of two new species of genus Schistura reaffirm the ‘hottest hotspot’ status of the Western Ghats, a repository of biological wealth of a rare kind, both in its aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems