Diversity of wetland fish and its impact on the income of fishermen community of Assam.

A survey was conducted in 3000 fishermen households surrounding 54 wetlands (Beels) of Assam. The fish diversity of the wetlands has been decreasing during the last few years due to some extrinsic and intrinsic factors. The total number of fish species recorded so far during the present study is 67 belonging to 21 families. Cyprinidae is the most dominant family represented by major group species (8), intermediate group species (3) and minor group species (12) of high commercial value. Among these three groups, the diversity of fish species is higher in the minor group fish. The present paper deals with the economic condition of the fishermen who mainly fish in the wetlands. The economic condition of the fishermen community is found very poor. The income of fishermen varies from Rs. 4.478 to Rs.7,484 per annum. A regression analysis shows that the income of fishermen is not dependent alone on the fish production but it is exclusively dependent on the value of the fish catch. All the three groups (in terms of value) have significant influence at 10.00% confidence level. But analysis of β shows that the intermediate fish group exhibits the highest influence on the variation of the fishermen income followed by minor and major group respectively.

Ichthyofaunal diversity of great Nicobar Island, Bay of Bengal

Ichthyofauna was studied in the inshore waters around the Great Nicobar Island to assess the extent of biodiversity of fishery resources in the Great Nicobar waters by using various gears and crafts. During the present study, 258 species of fin fishes belonging to 141 genera, 84 families and 19 orders were recorded. Among these, Perciformes topped the list with 47 families, 84 genera and 169 species followed by Clupeiformes, Angulliformes, Tetrodoniformes, Cyprinodontiformes, Scorpaeniformes, Rajiformes, Elopiformes, Pleuronectiformes, Syluriformes, Laminiformes, Bercyformes, Aelopiformes, Syngathiformes and Gonorhychiformes which includes the medicinally important and ornamentally valuable species.

GENETIC DIVERSITY IN THE CHINESE PANGOLIN (MANIS-PENTADACTYLA) INFERRED FROM PROTEIN ELECTROPHORESIS

We examined protein polymorphism of Chinese pangolins (Manis pentadactyla) from Yunnan Province of China, including two forms of three brown and nine dusky Chinese pangolins. Sixty-two genetic loci were screened; 12 loci were found to be polymorphic. The percentage of polymorphic loci (P) is 0.194, the mean individual heterozygosity (H) is 0.078, and the mean number of alleles (A) is 1.258. Furthermore, we calculated the genetic distance (D) between the two forms and found a low level of genetic divergence (D = 0.0206) between them, which indicates an almost-indistinguishable divergence at the level of proteins.