Fish Diversity of Karnataka – An Update

Book excerpt: Currently 20,000-30,000 species of fish are identified in the diverse aquatic ecosystems globally, as a result in a freshwater ecosystem everyday new species are including by the researchers in the area of Ichthyology diversity. Generally, 24000 fish species listed scientifically in the global scenario, in that, nearer to 11% are available in Indian aquatic environment. Among them, 2200 species so far recorded, 3.32% belongs to the cold freshwater ecosystem, 24.73% belongs to the warm fresh waters bodies, 6.50% belongs to the brackish waters and 65.45% belongs to the ocean system. In that, the fish biodiversity of the Karnataka shares the richness of species around 240, in Cauvery river belt of Southern Karnataka share around 109 species, in Krishna river belt of Northern share around 168 species, in Kali river belt of Western Karnataka share 124 species and Karnaja river belt of Eastern Karnataka share 59 species of fishes distributed as a 102 genera, 38 families and 14 orders covering whole Karnataka fish diversity. Among these total fish species, 3 orders dominating with diverse species richness by the composition of Cypriniformes covering 5 families, 45 genera and 140 species, whereas order Siluriformes covering 9 families, 24 genera and 51 species and in Perciformes covering 9 families, 15 genera and 26 species. It has been also recognized as around 40 species under the list of threatened, 5 species are critically endangered, 22 species are endangered and 13 are vulnerable as per the red data book. As conservation strategies, researchers were involved with selective breeding method to enrich the native fish species and it may help to reduce or mitigate the problem of fish species diversity in Karnataka.