Molecular investigation of Cavernicoles from Kotumsar Cave in Northern Eastern Ghats, India

Authors

  • Boni Amin Laskar
     Freshwater Biology Regional Centre, Zoological Survey of India, Hyderabad − 500048, Telangana
  • Shantanu Kundu
     Centre for DNA Taxonomy, Molecular Systematics Division, Zoological Survey of India, M Block, New Alipore, Kolkata − 700053, West Bengal
  • Rehanuma Sulthana
     Freshwater Biology Regional Centre, Zoological Survey of India, Hyderabad − 500048, Telangana
  • Harikumar Adimalla
     House No. 2-60, Village Turkapalle, Nalgonda − 508266, Telangana
  • Deepa Jaiswal
     Freshwater Biology Regional Centre, Zoological Survey of India, Hyderabad − 500048, Telangana
  • Kaomud Tyagi
     Centre for DNA Taxonomy, Molecular Systematics Division, Zoological Survey of India, M Block, New Alipore, Kolkata − 700053, West Bengal
  • Vikas Kumar
     Centre for DNA Taxonomy, Molecular Systematics Division, Zoological Survey of India, M Block, New Alipore, Kolkata − 700053, West Bengal
  • Kailash Chandra
     Freshwater Biology Regional Centre, Zoological Survey of India, Hyderabad − 500048, Telangana

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26515/rzsi/v121/i3/2021/154573

Keywords:

Cave Fauna, Conservation, DNA Barcoding, Environmental DNA (eDNA), New Record

Abstract

The Kotumsar cave is situated in the Eastern Ghats and has been reported by the existence of 14 different organisms morphologically. To reassess the living taxa and hitherto unreported organisms, intervention of molecular tool is required to corroborate the exact faunal diversity. In the present study, we dealt with the environmental samples and opportunistically encountered living specimens from both deep and transition zones of the Kotumsar cave. The morphological and integrated approach confirmed the existence of Rhinolophus rouxii (Medellin et al., 2017) (bat), Kempiola shankari Sinha and Agarwal, 1977 (cricket), Heteropoda leprosa Simon, 1884 (spider). Further, the collected environmental DNA (eDNA) samples were successfully identified as Fejervarya pierrei (Dubois, 1975) (frog), Indoreonectes evezardi (Day, 1872) (fish), Metrocoris sp. (true bug), Barytelphusa cunicularis (Westwood, 1836) (crab), Trigoniulidae sp. (millipede), and Megascolecidae sp. (worm). Hence, the present investigation through combined approaches by both morphological and molecular data helps to add six more organisms to the faunal checklist of Kotumsar cave. The study also contributed the genetic information of cavernicoles in the global database from India. This genetic information would further help to pursuing other biological studies and adopt better conservation strategies of cave-dwelling organisms and restoration of the colligated ecosystem.

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Published

2021-09-30

How to Cite

Amin Laskar, B., Kundu, S., Sulthana, R., Adimalla, H., Jaiswal, D., Tyagi, K., … Chandra, K. (2021). Molecular investigation of Cavernicoles from Kotumsar Cave in Northern Eastern Ghats, India. Records of the Zoological Survey of India, 121(3), 337–345. https://doi.org/10.26515/rzsi/v121/i3/2021/154573

Issue

Volume 121, Issue 3, 2021

Section

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