Fishes of middle stretch of river Tawa, Madhya Pradesh, India

Abstract

Ichthyofaunal documentation is regarded as one of the major issues of enabling sustainable use of natural resources and play a vital role in analyzing status of fish species (threatened, endangered, dominant, abundance etc). River Tawa, an important river in central India, supports rich fish diversity, a major source of livelihood and food. Unfortunately, systematic study of fish diversity in R. Tawa has been neglected and the information on these aspects is scanty, either very old and not been updated for decade. With this in view, the study was conducted. This contribution focuses on the diversity of fish, their human use and conservation status in middle stretch of the river. The present study revealed that 57 fish species belonging to 35 genera, 13 families and 06 orders have so far been identified. Besides this, the river supports 25 ornamental fish with (43.85%), and 17 aquacultural fish with (29.82%). In addition to the above, trophic structure indicated dominance of herbivore with 19 fish species (33.33%) followed by carnivore 15 species (26.31%) and omnivore with 16 species (28.07%) while 4 species (7.01%) was not evaluated. As per red list of threatened species, 4 species belonging to near threatened (NT) category and 1 belonging to vulnerable category. The fish species were also divided into different groups like major carps, catfishes, murrels, eels, feather back etc. To save this diversity and to a sustainable fishery practice in the country, proper documentation leading to fish diversity information system is an urgent need of the present day.