Indian Journal of Geo-Marine Science Vol.45(10), October 2016, pp. 1305-1309 A regional information system on fishes from the Western Ghats, India: Its design, implementation and utility Ajey Kumar Pathak*, Shri Prakash Singh, Rajesh Dayal, Uttam Kumar Sarkar & Reeta Chaturvedi ICAR- National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources, Canal Ring Road, P.O. Dilkusha, Lucknow– 226002, India *[Email: [email protected]] Received 03 July 2014; revised 20 August 2014 Present study discusses design and implementation of an information system for fish biodiversity of Western Ghats region. The system was developed by collating data from published reliable sources and applying Visual Basic language, MSACESS database and ADOBE image technologies for the Windows platform. The system through different search options provides ability to browse taxonomic, distribution, conservation status, morphology, environment and other fishery information of fish species of interest with good quality images. It incorporates information on 373 fish species belonging to 45 families and 141 genus. Of the 373 fish species,141 are endemic to this region and 8 are exotic. This serves as fish checklist resource of this region. [Keywords: Fish Biodiversity Information System, Information System, Database, Western Ghats, Fish] Introduction the biodiversity point of view enjoying different Nowadays, globally science and business ecosystems, habitats and niches of aquatic much depends on the database technology. Thus, environment11. They are the best bio-indicators of databases are also essential part of the the ecosystem health12. They form the most biodiversity science and they are often considered important product of the ecosystem and play a to be neutral carriers or storage devices1. key role in the economy and sustainable growth Database technology has widely been used in of many nations being the stable item in the diet plants and agricultural research to store of many people13. Fishes provide cheap source of information such as morphological description2, protein of animal origin, fat, vitamin A and D growth data3, gene information4, karyological5 etc. minerals14 in typical diet, employment and Although Western Ghats (WG) (Figure 1) covers income to millions of people15. Evolution and the only 6% of the total land area of India, yet it recent developments in the database and computer accounts for more than 30% of the species of all technologies and updated associated knowledge major plant and animal groups found in India with base facilitate for development of exciting new more than 5,000 species of angiosperms, 140 ways to organize and present the information16. species of mammals, 508 species of birds, 140 These technologies sufficiently provide species of amphibians (and increasing rapidly), opportunities to digitally store the information 240 species of reptiles, and 290 species of consistent with the external reality. These freshwater fishes6, 7. The region has highest technologies were used to enhance the usability endemism in amphibians (78%), followed by and scope even to the students. The system reptiles (62%), fish (53%), plants (34%), presents information on 373 fish species mammals (12%) and birds (4%)6-9. belonging to 45 families and 141 genus. Of the 373 fish species, 141 are endemic (38.22%) to Fishes account almost 25% of the global WG and 8 are exotics. The system serves as an vertebrate diversity, of which India alone updated checklist resource of fishes with contributes 11.72 %. Worldwide, there are 32800 additional information. species of fishes10. Fishes are very important from 1306 INDIAN J MAR SCI VOL 45, NO. 10 OCTOBER 2016 Database development MSACCESS 2007 relational database management system under Windows operating platform was applied to develop the database for storing, updating and managing the list and information on the fish species. Information recorded on the species sheets was used to populate the tables of the database after verification. The database holds the information in six tables (Table 1). Table 1: Main tables and their contents Table name Content Distribution Contains information about species occurrence in the rivers and districts. FISH_REFERENCE Main Reference of fish species Species Contains detail information of fish species like habiat, common name, species name with author and year etc. State State and distrcit name Synonyms Information about synonyms of a species contains scientific name, author and year Taxonomy Taxonomy Information of a species contains Phylum, subphylum, class, subclass, division, subdivision, superorder, order, suborder, family, subfamily, genus and species Interface development An interface using Visual Basic language was developed to integrate the database and provides the ability to the end user for retrieving and viewing the information from the database. The interface includes various search options and command buttons that provides the ability to work with the database. Figure 1: The Western Ghats hotspot region of India Materials and Methods Results and Discussion The fish species reported over periods from Presently, the information system covers 373 the waters of the WG region, published into fish species belonging to 45 families and 141 various literatures and other data sources were genus including 141 endemic (38.22%) and 8 scanned for collecting information. The standard exotic fish species (Carassius auratus auratus, species data collection sheets were prepared to Clarias gariepinus, Ctenopharyngodon idella, collect the information on scientific name with Cyprinus carpio carpio, Hypophthalmichthys author's name, common name, taxonomy, molitrix, Hypophthalmichthys nobilis, distribution, habitat, rivers, synonyms, economic Oncorhynchus mykiss and Oreochromis importance, fishery, morphological characters and mossambicus). The interface included with colouration. Each species sheet was checked for different search and command button options synonyms to avoid duplication and only valid have the ability to present information from the names were included. The old scientific name was database. The system at present includes native replaced with the latest valid scientific name fishes and introduced fishes which have been along with author's name and year. Threatened reported and established in the natural waters of status of the fishes was modified as per the IUCN WG. The total number of exotic fishes reported red list 2012 and the information on endemism of and available in the natural waters of this region the fishes was modified according to the recently may be higher due to regular import of aquarium published literatures. fishes and it is a subject of further study.The view PATHAK et al.: A REGIONAL INFORMATION SYSTEM ON FISHES FROM THE WESTERN GHATS 1307 of the start-up screen of the information system WG is the natural abode of enormous endemic has been presented in Figure 2. floral and faunal diversity and its association with the comparatively younger geo-region Indian subcontinent have been attracting many research workers for studying floral and faunal distribution. The different workers have mentioned the different level of endemism over time from different sub-regions. Main endemic genus to WG are Eechatthalakenda, Hora lobiosa, Bhavania, Travancoria, Pseudobagrus, Horaglanis, Horaichthys and Paramibassis. Pooling this information, the range of endemism Figure 2: Start-up screen of the information system of fishes varies from two fifth to two third of total number over the different sub-geographic regions The different search options included in the of WG. Further, the taxonomic information interface provides the ability to the end user to includes phylum, subphylum, class, subclass, query with the database and retrieve the order, suborder, family, subfamily and genus. The information about the species of interest. The taxonomic study cum scrutiny of fish species three search options: Search by Species name, by covered in the database belonging to 45 families Genus and species, by Family and species have indicates that Cyprinidae is the most dominant been included to facilitate the query. Figure 3 family followed by Bagridae, Nemacheilidae. In shows the view of the query interface integrated addition, the other 13 families are represented by with different search options. one species, 7 by 2 species each, 6 by 3 species Figure 4 provides the view of the information each and 4 families by 4 species each presented after querying the database. This view respectively. An analysis of the fish habitat includes command buttons that provides the distribution covered in the database showed that further related information. the region is dominated by 291 (78.02%) freshwater species, followed by 39 sp. (10.57%) common to fresh and brackishwater and remaining 24 sp, (6.51%) are visiting all three environment fresh, brackish and marine waters in different life stages. Additionally, the system includes information on 19 new species to science described and recently published during the period 2010 to 2013 by various researchers; for brief details of these new species described during the period 2010-1317. The conservation status of the fishes as per the IUCN criteria and guidelines were analysed and the database presents 53,12, Figure 3:View of the interface with different search options 171, 12, 17, 36, 1, 1, 2, 1 and 63 species belonging to different threat categories like Endangered (EN), Critically Endangered, Least concern (LC), Near threatened (NT), Data Deficient (DD),