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Journal of Threatened Taxa Building evidence for conservaton globally www.threatenedtaxa.org ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) Communication An overview of fishes of the Sundarbans, Bangladesh and their present conservation status Kazi Ahsan Habib, Amit Kumer Neogi, Najmun Nahar, Jina Oh, Youn-Ho Lee & Choong-Gon Kim 26 January 2020 | Vol. 12 | No. 1 | Pages: 15154–15172 DOI: 10.11609/jot.4893.12.1.15154-15172 For Focus, Scope, Aims, Policies, and Guidelines visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-0 For Artcle Submission Guidelines, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions For Policies against Scientfc Misconduct, visit htps://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-2 For reprints, contact <[email protected]> The opinions expressed by the authors do not refect the views of the Journal of Threatened Taxa, Wildlife Informaton Liaison Development Society, Zoo Outreach Organizaton, or any of the partners. 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Partner Member Threatened Taxa Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 January 2020 | 12(1): 15154–15172 ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) PLATINUM OPEN ACCESS DOI: htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.4893.12.1.15154-15172 #4893 | Received 14 February 2019 | Final received 03 November 2019 | Finally accepted 04 December 2019 C o m m u n An overview of fshes of the Sundarbans, Bangladesh i c and their present conservaton status a t 1 2 3 4 i Kazi Ahsan Habib , Amit Kumer Neogi , Najmun Nahar , Jina Oh , o Youn-Ho Lee 5 & Choong-Gon Kim 6 n 1 Department of Fisheries Biology and Genetcs, Faculty of Fisheries, Aquaculture & Marine Science, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka 1207, Bangladesh. 2,3 Aquatc Bioresource Research Lab, Department of Fisheries Biology and Genetcs, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka 1207, Bangladesh. 4,5,6 Marine Ecosystem Research Division, Korea Insttute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST), Busan 49111, Korea. 1 [email protected] (corresponding author), 2 [email protected], 3 [email protected], 4 [email protected], 5 [email protected], 6 [email protected] Abstract: Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest of the world is located in Bangladesh and India. Studies done on the diversity of fsh fauna in the Sundarbans mangrove forest of Bangladesh are sparse and patchy. Here we take the opportunity to provide an updated checklist of the fshes of the Sundarbans, Bangladesh based on primary and secondary data. Field surveys were undertaken in the aquatc habitat of Sundarbans core area along with its adjacent marine habitat from June 2015 to July 2017. Based on published informaton and primary observatons the updated list of fshes covers a total of 322 species belonging to 217 genera, 96 families, and 22 orders. Additonally, four species of fshes, are newly reported in Bangladesh waters, viz., Mustelus mosis Hemprich & Ehrenberg, 1899; Lagocephalus guentheri Miranda Ribeiro, 1915; Carangoides hedlandensis Whitley, 1934; Uranoscopus cognatus Cantor, 1849. The global IUCN Red List status of each species has been enlisted. The updated checklist will consttute the reference inventory of fsh biodiversity for the Sundarbans, a natural world heritage site. Keywords: Bangladesh, checklist, fsh, mangroves, Sundarbans, World Natural Heritage Site. st nd Abbreviatons: Dorsal fn D1—1 Dorsal fn | D2—2 Dorsal fn | P1—Pectoral fn| P2—Pelvic fn| A—Anal fn. Editor: J.A. Johnson, Wildlife Insttute of India, Dehradun, India. Date of publicaton: 26 January 2020 (online & print) Citaton: Habib, K.A., A.K. Neogi, N. Nahar, J. Oh, Y-H. Lee & C-G. Kim (2020). An overview of fshes of the Sundarbans, Bangladesh and their present conservaton status. Journal of Threatened Taxa 12(1): 15154–15172. htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.4893.11.15.15154-15172 Copyright: © Habib et al. 2020. Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproducton, and distributon of this artcle in any medium by adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publicaton. Funding: This research has been carried out under Yeosu project funded by Expo 2012 Yeosu Korea Foundaton. Competng interests: The authors declare no competng interests. Author details: See end of this artcle. Author contributon: Kazi Ahsan Habib and Amit Kumer Neogi collected the data and drafed this artcle; Amit Kumer Neogi, Jina Oh, Kazi Ahsan Habib analysed the morphological and molecular data; Najmun Nahar analysed the morphological characters; Choong-Gon Kim and Youn-Ho Lee reviewed the manuscript. Acknowledgements: We are thankful to Md. Amir Hosain Chowdhury, DCCF of Bangladesh Forest Department (BFD) for his valuable comments and informaton during drafing the paper. We also pay thanks to the Bangladesh Forest Department for their cooperaton during the study at Sundarbans. 15154 J TT Fishes of the Sundarbans Habib et al. INTRODUCTION availability in the Sundarbans waters such as Seidenstcker & Hai (1983), Rahman (1989), Acharya & Kamal (1994), Mangroves are intertdal forested wetlands confned to Chantarasri (1994), Bernacsek (2001), Bernacsek & Haque the tropical and subtropical regions (Tomlinson 1986). The (2001), Shah & Hossain (2006), and Rahman et al. (2009). total area of the mangroves in the globe is an estmated The main objectve of the present study is to assess the 18.1 million ha (Spalding et al. 1997). The Sundarbans, the existng fsh fauna of Sundarbans and accumulate all fsh single largest tract of mangrove forest in the world covers species from the valid records made so far. Additonally, about 1 million hectares in the delta of the river Ganges, we have reviewed the present fshing practces in the Brahmaputra, and Meghna. Among the total area 60% lies Sundarbans detrimental to fsh biodiversity, and the in Bangladesh and the rest in India. This transboundary natonal policies made for fsheries management and ecosystem is extremely important both ecologically and conserving fsh diversity. economically as it provides a nursery and breeding area for key fshes including those of the Bay of Bengal. The Sundarbans in Bangladesh covers an area of 6,017km2 METHODS along its southwestern part sharing 4,143km2 of land and 1,874km2 of water bodies comprising of hundreds We consulted the primary and previously published of creeks, canals, small and large rivers, and estuaries. artcles, records, and books on ichthyological studies in the This mangrove forest was declared a Ramsar site by the Sundarbans to build this checklist. These collectons are Conventon of Wetlands of Internatonal Importance in mainly taken for preparing the list of the fshes known to 1992 and declared as a Natural World Heritage Site by occur in the Sundarbans and their valid identfcaton and UNESCO in 1997 (Figure 1). Despite contnued degradaton, confrmaton. Unbiased and sincere eforts were made in the Sundarbans contributes 3% to the country’s gross accumulatng such a valuable treasure. domestc product out of 5% contributon of the country’s In the present survey, specimens of fshes were forestry sector (Roy & Alam 2012). sampled between June 2015 and July 2017 from the major The fsh diversity of the brackish water ecosystem of rivers of the Sundarbans, viz., Baleswar, Shibsa, Passur, the Sundarbans is usually associated with tolerance to Shela, Kobadak, Kalindi, Kholpetua, and a few of the tdal a wide range of salinity fuctuaton and migraton. The estuaries, and adjacent marine habitat in the Sundarbans, freshwater fsh species having low salinity tolerance enter with the help of local fshermen during fshing (Figure 1). into upper estuarine zone mainly in the period of ebb tde, The fshes were also collected from the fsh markets inside while marine fshes are usually confned to the lower zone. or near the Sundarbans of Khulna, Bagherhat, and Satkhira Though some species travel freely in the whole salinity area districts. The spellings of scientfc names and species for a major part of the year, very few can be considered validity were checked following Fishbase (Froese & Pauly as ‘natve’ (Mishra 2017). Basically, most of the fsh 2018) and the California Academy of Sciences Catalog of species enter into the brackish waters of the Sundarbans Fishes (Eschmeyer et al. 2018). The arrangement of families and spend for a certain period of their life cycle there and order are made according to Nelson (2006) and Laan either for shelter and feeding or for spawning purposes. et al. (2014). The identfcaton was made by using FAO The major threat to fshes of the Sundarbans region are fsh species catalogues which present detailed taxonomic environmental changes, reducton of freshwater discharge accounts of all known species of individual families. As during lean seasons, increased salinity, use of destructve the checklist is intended to be a master reference for the fshing gear (e.g., set bag net, small mesh size gill net), over Sundarbans habitat conservaton and management, we exploitaton, extracton of resources, and polluton. consulted the latest global IUCN Red List status of each Informaton regarding the diversity of fsh in the species (IUCN 2018). For habitat preference, we consulted Sundarbans of Bangladesh is scatered. Fishes of the previous data, our primary observaton, reference website Sundarbans were frst described in the study of Hamilton (Froese & Pauly 2018) and diferent reference books (1822).