Abstract

The present study evaluated the patterns of morphometric and genetic variation using RAPD-PCR techniques for the first time on three species of Garra, viz. G. mullya, G. kalakadensis and G. gotyla stenorhynchus, collected from various river basins of South-India. The results of morphological analysis revealed that G. mullya and G. kalakadensis hold many similar characters compared to the other congener, G. gotyla stenorhynchus. However, the G. gotyla stenorhynchus fish species exhibited distinct variation in the morphological characters such as snout length, pre-nasal length, inter-nasal width, gap width, lower jaw to isthmus, head depth at pupil, dorsal fin length and disc width from the other two species of Garra. However, certain morphometric characters overlapped. Hence the RAPD finger printing was used to assess the levels of genetic variation in Garra spp. using RAPD-PCR technique. A total of 72 reliable fragments were detected using 10 Operon primers, ranging from 2600 molecular weight to 3100. The shared RAPD fragments found in both G. mullya and G. kalakadensis with fixed frequencies were observed with all the investigated primers, implying their genetically closer relationship. However, the similarity index observed for G. gotyla stenorhynchus was less with the other two species specifying a genetically distant link. The present investigation thus contribute to the knowledge on morphological and genetic variation in these three Garra species.

Highlights

  • India is a land of ‘biological paradise’ which supports a great variety of flora and fauna with its diverse topography, climate and natural resource

  • Garra mullya and G. kalakadensis are similar regarding morphological characters comparing to other congener, G. gotyla stenorhynchus

  • The principale components analysis revealed that G. mullya and G. kalakadensis are more similar species than G. gotyla stenorhynchus (Fig. 2)

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Summary

Introduction

India is a land of ‘biological paradise’ which supports a great variety of flora and fauna with its diverse topography, climate and natural resource. The fresh water resources of Indian subcontinent are very rich but largely unexplored. An estimate states that there are 12 major rivers and 48 lesser rivers with a total catchment area of 277.6 million hectares (Ghosh and Ponniah, 2001). Out of the 2500 species of fishes, recognized in the Indian subcontinent, 930 are categorized as freshwater species ( Jayaram, 1999) and account for 9.3% of global inland fish production (Ghosh and Ponniah, 2001). Studies on freshwater fishes in the Indian subcontinent have been limited to scattered works on commercial fisheries and have been largely restricted to some of the major river systems. The fin fish population in many fresh water resources of the country still remains unexplored for their taxonomical delineation

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