Reply
to “Need for further research on the freshwater fish fauna of the Ashambu Hills
landscape: a response to Abraham et al.”
Robin Kurian Abraham 1, Nachiket Kelkar 2& A. Biju Kumar 3
1,2TC 11/1123, YMR Junction, Kowdiar
P.O., Nanthencode, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala 695003, India
3Department of Aquatic Biology and
Fisheries, University of Kerala, Kariavattom, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
695581, India
Email: 1 robinabrahamf50@gmail.com, 2 rainmaker.nsk@gmail.com (corresponding author),3 bijupuzhayoram@gmail.com
Date of publication (online): 26 May 2011
Date of publication (print): 26 May 2011
ISSN 0974-7907 (online) | 0974-7893 (print)
Manuscript
details:
Ms # o2797
Received 05 May 2011
Citation:Abraham, R.K., N. Kelkar & A.B. Kumar (2011). Reply to “Need for further
research on the freshwater fish fauna of the Ashambu Hills landscape: a
response to Abraham et al.”. Journal
of Threatened Taxa 3(5): 1792–1797.
Copyright: ©
Robin Kurian Abraham, Nachiket Kelkar & A. Biju Kumar 2011. Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this
article in any medium for non-profit purposes, reproduction and distribution by
providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publication.
The response to the article and checklist (Abraham et al. 2011) by
Raghavan (2011) is timely, and much appreciated. Such critical reading of manuscripts would not only help the
authors to prepare the manuscripts with caution but aid fish taxonomists and
researchers planning to work on similar topics. The critique has rightfully pointed out a few shortcomings
that we overlooked. We are
grateful to some of the constructive suggestions in the critical response, as
this was a primary attempt to prepare a comprehensive database of fishes in the
west-flowing drainages of the Ashambu Hills. We provide in this reply, a revised checklist for freshwater
fishes in this region, based on some of the respondent’s suggestions.
We thank the respondent for pointing out some references we
inadvertently overlooked (e.g. Kurup et al. 2004). We also missed some species
from the list, largely due to taxonomic ambiguities or unavailability of
obscure references (e.g. Jerdon 1849; Arnold 1911; Euphrasia et al. 2006) to
us. Further, we had also decided
to have strict criteria for including references that were published in
journals or as theses (compiling individual papers by authors from the
theses). This was done because
conference proceedings were often confusing for proper citation as their
publication info was inadequate, leading to certain key omissions, as
pointed. Finally, some references
mentioned in the critique are rather new, (ongoing doctoral research cited in
the response; Eschmeyer & Fricke 2011) and we would like to request the
consideration that our manuscript was submitted before these publications, so
some references may have been overlooked in the final version too.
Also, we would like to discuss the taxonomic status and occurrence
of some species as it appears in our paper, with the following clarifications:
(i) The ‘missing’ species highlighted by the critique such as Hypselobarbusthomassi, Tor khudree, Botia striata, Nemacheilus guentheri, Mystus sengtee,
Glyptothorax lonah and Mystusgulio are indeed species that
were not included in the checklist, because of doubts about the taxonomic
status of these species, and we did not describe in detail within the paper.
(ii) Also, many previous checklists that were consulted were seen
to repeat earlier ones, apparently without extensive fieldwork, as remarked by
the critique. Moreover, in our field sampling we did not find some species
mentioned in earlier checklists, such as Barilius gatensis, which have been shown to be abundant in all the sampled rivers
by past authors, hence the omission of some species in our paper.
(iii) The status of Puntius melanampyx has been ambiguous in literature and synonymized with P. fasciatus in earlier literature (Jayaram 1991, 2010). We add a new species Puntiuskannikattiensis in our checklist. We
sampled this species in Neyyar and Karamana rivers (reported from KMTR by
Arunachalam & Johnson 2002).
(iv) With regard to our usage of the term,
‘range extension’, even though we have not explicitly used it on individual
rivers, we have extended the ranges of some of the species, towards the south
by a river or two. Garra hughi,
as we mentioned in our paper, had been reported from the headwaters of the
Vamanapuram River by Johnson & Arunachalam (2010). But, our
study reports a population further south into the Neyyar River. And our goal is
not to merely mention the novel southernmost range for the species, but to
elaborate on the occurrence of the species in all drainages sampled, keeping in
mind that such information would be of interest to any biogeographic work.
(v) Puntius mahecola, similarly, reported by Pethiyagoda & Kottelat (2005) to
occur in Kallada, was only mentioned and indicated in the map to provide a wholesome
representation of the species distribution in the sampled landscape. We have recorded it from all five
sampled rivers (with the rivers Karamana and Neyyar being previously not
reported), and hence a range extension for the species. It may be noted that
the title of our paper is not ‘range extension into the Ashambu Hills’. We also agree that Puntiusmahecola is not the synonym of P. amphibius and the taxonomic ambiguities remain to be resolved as to what
actually represents the latter species, leaving scope for more comprehensive
work, especially including the type localities.
(vi) Taxonomic ambiguities with regard to Garramcclellandi and G. periyarensis remain to be resolved and further research, incorporating
molecular taxonomy, would help resolve these issues. At present we believe the
specimen we have is G. mcclellandi. As our
studies are ongoing, voucher specimens will be made available for scrutiny
soon.
(vii) Additionally, further studies are warranted to record the
population status of Hypselobarbus thomassi in the Kallada River system. If, as the critique mentions, that studies are being currently
undertaken for the same, then that should help resolve any taxonomic
misunderstandings for the species in this region. Eschmeyer & Fong (2010) treat Tor khudree
malabaricus as T. malabaricus; so the species we refer to is synonymous with T. khudree.
Finally, we would like to reiterate that the primary intention and
scope of our paper was to present a checklist of fish species occurring in the
west-flowing rivers of the Ashambu Hills of Kerala and not provide a
comprehensive taxonomic treatment as such. We would also like to mention here that some taxonomic
limitations of the study arise from the minimally invasive sampling approaches
we preferred to use, whereby we did not make excessive ‘collections’ of every
sampled species. We did make
specimen collections where we thought it necessary, but avoided wanton
collections on account of the threats faced by rare fishes even within
Protected Areas. One of our
important endeavours in this study has been to actively on taxonomic issues,
avoid excessive collection for merely taxonomic work, especially from within
conservations reserves and sanctuaries where many endemics occur (Abraham &
Kelkar, in Press) and also from unprotected areas. Many current and previous
studies (e.g. Baby et. al. 2010) have employed the use of electro-fishing
methods in critical aquatic habitats within conservation landscapes. We believe that there are and have to
be more sensible ways, (although, of course, much more tedious and
time-consuming) for collection of fish species. Experienced fish taxonomists
(such as Shri C. P. Shaji; pers.comm.) have observed mass mortality of several
non-target aquatic species and life forms like amphibian tadpoles, juveniles
fishes, crustaceans and macro-invertebrates, immediately following episodes of
electro-fishing by ‘scientific sampling’ (Nielsen 1998).
We do not deny the importance of the respondent’s
suggestions. At the same time, we
would like to stress the importance of minimally invasive ways for highly
threatened taxa such as freshwater fishes and amphibians. We believe that the time’s need is to
go beyond mere stamp-collecting and check-listing, through inculcating certain
conservation sensitivities in field research, and we are glad to have done
that. We thank the respondent’s thoughtful and in-depth comments on our
article. Our revised checklist
(Table 1) may be referred as an erratum to the original paper (Abraham et al.
2011). We also sincerely
hope that this discussion would be useful for authors working on freshwater
fishes in the region.
References
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range extensions. Journal of Threatened Taxa 3(3):
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Abraham, R.K. & N.
Kelkar (2011 in press). Do terrestrial Protected Areas
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