Avijit Kar

Freshwater fish resource mapping and conservation strategies of West Bengal, India

Explorations and Germplasm estimation of fish biodiversity in the freshwater bodies of India are being gradually updated and analysed with a number of new discoveries though a well-defined figure of existing freshwater fish species at regional and state level remains to be calculated. The freshwater resources of India are currently experiencing an alarming decline trend in term of piscine biodiversity due to several undesired factors and consequences a considerable portion of freshwater fishes have been categorized as Threatened category. West Bengal is now becomes one of the most significant states of freshwater fish producer in India. The research study workout and divide the West Bengal state into six major physiographic divisions along with the help of modern Geoinformatics techniques (ArcGIS 10.2, Google Earth and Global Mapper software for map making purpose). The present study deals with the freshwater fish resource, distribution and biodiversity assessment of entire part of West Bengal. Occurrence of 251 fish species belonging to 15 orders, 50 families have been noted during the study period of 2012–2016. It is evident that the members belonging to Cyprinifomes constitute 37% of the total fish fauna of the river. Fluctuation in occurrence and abundance of the species are influenced by several anthropogenic activities. The demand of proper management of conservation policy is highlights through our research work.

Environmental DNA (eDNA): A Promising Biological Survey Tool for Aquatic Species Detection

Aquatic species are facing at higher risk of extinction similar to that of any other living components of diversified ecosystem in present scenario. So that, the conservation of aquatic biodiversity is much more important to know about the accurate information regarding species composition and their biological community interactions. Generally, traditional survey methods depend on physical identification and characterization of species but it has some sorts of challenging chances due to the phenotypic plasticity, sibling species, different stages of life cycle and its invasiveness. To overcome such barriers one of the significant and promising tool likewise environmental DNA (eDNA), which way the collection of genetic materials from bulk environment (i.e. soil, water, sediment etc.) circuitously from organisms has been used to monitor and analyzed the biodiversity status, invasive species along with the species of conservation category. Recently, the real application of eDNA analysis based outcomes uphold the actual emerging know how practices in support of the population and community ecology, conservation biology as well as in the superior field of taxonomical research. Such scientific appraisal will be useful in understanding the brief history of aquatic eDNA and obviously its methodological considerations, gentle sources, collection and analysis process, physical form, its persistence and proper transport in aquatic ecosystem. Moreover, the fruitful drives for summarization the discoveries of eDNA application and method over traditional technique, its recent challenges and examine the current and future frontiers along with the appropriate practices of aquatic eDNA relevancy in aquatic ecosystem.