Fish fauna of IndrayaniRiver, northern Western Ghats, India

Neelesh Dahanukar¹, Mandar Paingankar², Rupesh N. Raut³ & Sanjay S. Kharat ⁴

¹ Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Sai Trinity, GarwareCircle, Pune, Maharashtra 411021, India

² Department of Zoology, University of Pune, Ganeshkhind, Pune, Maharashtra 411007, India

³ Department of Zoology, ElphinstoneCollege, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400032, India

⁴ Department of Zoology, Modern College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Ganeshkindh, Pune, Maharashtra 411007, India.

Email: ¹ n.dahanukar@iiserpune.ac.in (corresponding author), ²mandarpaingankar@gmail.com, ³ rupesh.raut@gmail.com,⁴ kharat.sanjay@gmail.com

Date of publication (online): 26 January 2012

Date of publication (print): 26 January 2012

ISSN 0974-7907 (online) | 0974-7893 (print)

Editor: K. RemaDevi

Manuscript details:

Ms # o2771

Received 25 April 2011

Final received 24 September 2011

Finally accepted 10 January 2012

Citation: Dahanukar, N., M. Paingankar, R.N. Raut& S.S. Kharat (2012). Fish fauna of Indrayani River, northern Western Ghats, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 4(1): 2310–2317.

Copyright: © Neelesh Dahanukar, Mandar Paingankar, Rupesh N. Raut & Sanjay S. Kharat 2012. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 UnportedLicense. 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.

Acknowledgements:We are thankful to Dr. R.M. Sharma, Officer-in-charge, and Shrikant Jadhav, Zoological Survey of India, Western Regional Center, Akurdi, Pune, for encouragement and helpful discussion. The study was self funded. The CEPF-funded freshwater assessment of the Western Ghats encouraged us to publish this work.  We duly acknowledge the help from CEPF for publication of this article.

Abstract: The freshwater fish fauna of the IndrayaniRiver, a northern tributary of the Krishna River system in the Western Ghats of India was studied. A total of 57 species of freshwater fish belonging to 18 families and 39 genera were recorded. However, based on the previous literature it is possible that the IndrayaniRiver harbours around 67 species. Out of the 57 species in the present collection, 12 are endemic to the Western Ghats while six are endemic to the Krishna River system. Neotropius khavalchor, an endemic fish of the Krishna River system, was recorded for the first time from the northern tributaries. The fish fauna of the Indrayani River is threatened due to seven introduced species and anthropogenic activities such as deforestation leading to siltation, tourism, sand mining, over fishing and organic and inorganic pollution. Since the Indrayani River hosts endemic and threatened species, including Glyptothorax poonaensis, conservation measures to ensure habitat protection in the river are essential.

Keywords: Freshwater fish fauna, Indrayani River, Krishna River system, Threats.

This article forms part of a special series on the Western Ghats of India, disseminating the results of work supported by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), a joint initiative of l’Agence Française de Développement, Conservation International, the Global Environment Facility, the Government of Japan, the MacArthur Foundation and the World Bank. A fundamental goal of CEPF is to ensure civil society is engaged in biodiversity conservation. Implementation of the CEPF investment program in the Western Ghats is led and coordinated by the AshokaTrust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE).

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TheIndrayani River originates in the northern Western Ghats of India at Kurwande Village (18.731⁰N & 73.382⁰E) near Lonawala, Pune District, Maharashtra. It is one of the tributaries of Bhima River, which in turn is a major tributary of the Krishna River system. In his seminal work on the fishes of the Deccan, Sykes (1839) described two species of freshwater fish from the Indrayani River. After more than 100 years, Suter (1944) recorded one more species from the Indrayani River at KalumbreVillage. A major study on the fish fauna of Indrayani River was carried out by Yazdani & Mahabal (1976), which resulted in the collection of 34 species belonging to 10 families and 19 genera. These three studies account for hardly 37 species of freshwater fish, which seems an under representation when compared with fish fauna of other rivers such as Mula-Mutha with a record of 102 fish species (Kharat et al. 2003) and Pavnawith a record of 59 fish species (Chandanshive et al. 2007), which are also tributaries of the BhimaRiver. Furthermore, the habitats along the Indrayani River have faced major alterations in the recent years due to increasing urbanization, industrialization and various recreational activities. Reassessment of the fish fauna and identifying the threats, so as to build baseline information for possible conservation action plans are thus a priority. For the current study, we sampled the entire stretch of the Indrayani River to identify the current status and threats to the freshwater fish fauna of this region.

Fish were collected from local fisherman and local markets at Markal(18.674⁰N & 73.983⁰E), Charholi Khurd (18.660⁰N & 73.906⁰E),Alandi (18.677⁰N & 73.895⁰E),Dehu road (18.719⁰N & 73.764⁰E),Wadgaon (18.754⁰N & 73.653⁰E),Kamshet (18.767⁰N & 73.551⁰E) and Lonawala (18.753⁰N & 73.432⁰E) located on the Indrayani River (Fig. 1) from May 2009 to April 2011. Fish were preserved in 4% formaldehyde and identified using available literature (Jayaram 1991, 2010; Menon 1964, 1987, 1992; Talwar & Jhingran1991; Jayaram & Dhas2000; Jayaram & Sanyal2003). Collected fish specimens are deposited at the Museum of the Zoological Survey of India, Western Regional Center, Akurdi, Pune(accession numbers P/2588 to P/2627). Assuming that the fishing effort for a given type of net (gill net or drag net) was constant, the relative abundance of the fish was grossly categorized (for each type of net separately) into four categories, namely: abundant (76–100 % of the total catch), common (51–75 % of the total catch), moderate (26–50 % of the total catch) and rare (1–25 % of the total catch).

We recorded a total of 57 species belonging to 18 families and 39 genera (Table 1). Of these, 12 species are endemic to the Western Ghats while five are endemic to the Krishna River system. Seven species that we collected were observed to be introduced into the Indrayani River. According to the abundance categories defined earlier there are 11 abundant, 14 common, 23 moderate and nine rare species. The list of species recorded by earlier studies on the Indrayani River is given in Table 2. Based on the previous literature and not considering two species, namely Schistura dayiand S.savona, which need taxonomic validation as they are restricted to central and northeastern India respectively, the total number of species in the IndrayaniRiver can be summed up to 67. However, out of these 67 species, Schismatorhynchos nuktais locally extirpated while Aplocheilus lineatusis probably locally extirpated from Indrayani River.

Sykes (1839) described two species, namely Schismatorhynchos nuktaand Leuciscus chitul, from Indrayani River. We could not record S. nuktain our study and the species was also not recorded in an earlier study by Yazdani & Mahabal(1976). Based on our discussions with the local fishermen, the species is locally extirpated from its type locality in Indrayani River. Ghate et al. (2002) suggested that the population of S. nuktais rapidly declining in the Krishna River system and suspected that pollution could be a major threat. Kharat et al. (2003) suggested that over fishing could be a driving force for local extinction of this species from Mula-MuthaRivers of Pune. Both, over fishing and inorganic and organic pollution are common in Indrayani River and may have been the driving force for the local extirpation of S.nukta. Nevertheless, we also suspect that competition created by introduced carps, such as Cirrhinus mrigalaand Labeo rohita,may also have contributed to the loss of S. nukta. Currently, S.nukta is assessed as Endangered in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Taxa (Dahanukar 2010a).

Another species, Leuciscus chitul, described by Sykes (1839) from Indrayani River has problematic taxonomic status. Eschmeyer & Fricke (2011) have included the species in their online Catalogue of Fishes but the current status of the fish is not mentioned. Day (1878) has considered L.chitul as a doubtful synonym of Amblypharyngodon mola. However, we think that the doubtful synonymy is invalid as the description of L. chituldoes not apply toA. mola. We could not record any species from Indrayani River which could fit into the description of L.chitul given by Sykes (1839).

Suter (1944) recorded Tor mussullahfrom the Indrayani River. Even though we could not record this species and its allied species Torkhudreefrom the Indrayani River, both species are present in the Valvan reservoir on the IndrayaniRiver at Lonawala where they are subjected to aquaculture.

Yazdani & Mahabal(1976) recorded 34 species from Indrayani River out of which 10 species were not recorded in our current study. Of these 10 species, we are doubtful about the taxonomic identification of two species, namely Schistura dayiand S.savona. S. dayi is restricted to theChota Nagpur plateau in central India (Jayaram 2010) and its occurrence in the Krishna River system is unlikely (Raghavan et al. 2010). Similarly, S. savona is restricted to northeastern India (Jayaram 2010). We think that Aplocheilus lineatusrecorded by Yazdani & Mahabal(1976) is probably locally extirpated from the IndrayaniRiver, as we could not record a single specimen of this species during our investigation. Nevertheless, we could record abundant populations of Poecilia reticulataor Guppy fish introduced to the Indrayani River for the purpose of mosquito control. It has been suggested that P. reticulatais a strong competitor to A.lineatus, as both have the same larvivorous feeding habits, and has the capacity to affect the A. lineatuspopulation negatively (Kharat et al. 2003; Wagh & Ghate 2003). Therefore, we think that the introduction of P.reticulatacould have been a major driving force for the decline in the population and possible local extirpation of Aplocheilus lineatusfrom Indrayani River.

We have recorded Neotropius khavalchor(Image 1) for the first time from the northern tributaries of the Krishna River system. N. khavalchoris a unique lepidophagous species (feeds on scales of other fishes and hence the local Marathi name Khavalchor[Khaval = scales, Chor = thief]) and is endemic to the Krishna River system (Menon1999; Jayaram 2010). It is a very rare species and has been considered as threatened by Menon (2004) by suggesting that small changes in water quality is likely to have adverse effects and may result in the loss of this species. We recorded this species from Kamshet (Fig. 1 & Image 2). The species is also known from Panchaganga River near Kolhapur (Kulkarni 1952; Kalawar & Kelkar 1956), Krishna River near Islampur(Kulkarni 1952), KoynaRiver near Patan (Jadhav et al. 2011), Krishna River near Sangli(Jayaram 1995), Krishna River at Jamkhandi(Jayaram 1995), Tunga-BhadraRiver (Shahnawaz & Venkateshwarlu2009) and in the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh (Devi & Indra 2003). However, since there is little information about the population status, life history and ecology of this species, N. khavalchoris assessed as Data Deficient in the current IUCN Red List (Dahanukar2010c).

Despite the fact that the Indrayani River hosts a number of endemic species and Endengered endemic species, such as Glyptothorax poonaensis (Dahanukar 2010b; Dahanukar et al. 2011) the fish fauna of Indrayani River is under threat as a result of several anthropogenic interferences. We recorded seven introduced species (four transplanted and three invasive) from the IndrayaniRiver (Table 1), which have been suggested as possible threats to the indigenous fish fauna (Kharat et al. 2003; Raghavan et al. 2008; Knight 2010). Other anthropogenic activities such as deforestation leading to siltation, recreational activities and sand mining are common in most of the stretches of the river. Such activities modify the specific habitat required by loaches belonging to family Balitoridae and Cobitidae and other hill stream fishes like Glyptothorax poonaensis (Dahanukar et al. 2011). Tourism in the upper stretches of the river leading to organic and inorganic pollution of smaller streams is another threat to the fishes of this region. The fish fauna of Indrayani River is also subjected to over fishing for consumption. Inorganic pollution of the river between Dehu Road to Markal due to industrial activities is another important threat to the fish fauna. Further, we observed an unidentified disease in Lepidocephalichthys thermalisin the upper stretches of the river near Lonawalawhere almost 70% of exploited individuals were affected. The nature of this disease, however, is still under study.

In conclusion, the Indrayani River hosts a number of freshwater fish species including globally threatened and endemic species of the Western Ghats. However, the fish fauna in this region is threatened due to several anthropogenic activities including introduced fish species, deforestation, over fishing, sand mining, recreational activities and organic and inorganic pollution. Since the fish fauna in this region also supports the livelihood of several economic classes there is an urgent need to understand the conservation priorities and to design and implement conservation action plans.

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