English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

The response to the article and checklist (Abraham et al. 2011) by Raghavan (2011) is timely, and much appreciated. Such critical reading of manuscripts would not only help the authors to prepare the manuscripts with caution but aid fish taxonomists and researchers planning to work on similar topics. The critique has rightfully pointed out a few shortcomings that we overlooked. We are grateful to some of the constructive suggestions in the critical response, as this was a primary attempt to prepare a comprehensive database of fishes in the west-flowing drainages of the Ashambu Hills. We provide in this reply, a revised checklist for freshwater fishes in this region, based on some of the respondent’s suggestions. We thank the respondent for pointing out some references we inadvertently overlooked (e.g. Kurup et al. 2004). We also missed some species from the list, largely due to taxonomic ambiguities or unavailability of obscure references (e.g. Jerdon 1849; Arnold 1911; Euphrasia et al. 2006) to us. Further, we had also decided to have strict criteria for including references that were published in journals or as theses (compiling individual papers by authors from the theses). This was done because conference proceedings were often confusing for proper citation as their publication info was inadequate, leading to certain key omissions, as pointed. Finally, some references mentioned in the critique are rather new, (ongoing doctoral research cited in the response; Eschmeyer & Fricke 2011) and we would like to request the consideration that our manuscript was submitted before these publications, so some references may have been overlooked in the final version too. Also, we would like to discuss the taxonomic status and occurrence of some species as it appears in our paper, with the following clarifications: (i) The ‘missing’ species highlighted by the critique such as Hypselobarbus thomassi, Tor khudree, Botia striata, Nemacheilus guentheri, Mystus sengtee, Glyptothorax lonah and Mystus gulio are indeed species that were not included in the checklist, because of doubts about the taxonomic status of these species, and we did not describe in detail within the paper. (ii) Also, many previous checklists that were consulted were seen to repeat earlier ones, apparently without extensive fieldwork, as remarked by the critique. Moreover, in our field sampling we did not find some species mentioned in earlier checklists, such as Barilius gatensis, which have been shown to be abundant in all the sampled rivers by past authors, hence the omission of some species in our paper. (iii) The status of Puntius melanampyx has been ambiguous in literature and synonymized with P. fasciatus in earlier literature (Jayaram 1991, 2010). We add a new species Puntius kannikattiensis in our checklist. We sampled this species in Neyyar and Karamana rivers (reported from KMTR by Arunachalam & Johnson 2002). (iv) With regard to our usage of the term, ‘range extension’, even though we have not explicitly used it on individual rivers, we have extended the ranges of some of the species, towards the south by a river or two. Garra hughi, as we mentioned in our paper, had been reported from the headwaters of the Vamanapuram River by Johnson & Arunachalam (2010). But, our study reports a population further south into the Neyyar River. And our goal is not to merely mention the novel southernmost range for the species, but to elaborate on Date of publication (online): 26 May 2011 Date of publication (print): 26 May 2011 ISSN 0974-7907 (online) | 0974-7893 (print)

Reply to “Need for further research on the freshwater fish fauna of the Ashambu Hills landscape: a response to Abraham et al.”