Ashwini Keskar

• PhD ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
• PhD Student at University of Pune,Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune

The teleostean family Balitoridae comprises small-sized freshwater fishes adapted to swift-flowing torrential mountain streams in South and South-East Asia. Little is known about their molecular phylogenetics and evolutionary biogeography, and much of the scientific literature that references them is focused on morphological taxonomy. In this paper...

The diversity of hillstream loaches in the northern part of the Western Ghats region of India was studied for the first time using two mitochondrial genes, cytochrome oxidase subunit I and cytochrome b. Phylogenetic analysis revealed monophyletic groups corresponding to the genera Indoreonectes, Paracanthocobitis, Nemacheilus, Schistura and Nemachi...

Small, least conspicuous fish species are targeted through subsistence fisheries in many regions of the world, but little is known about their population dynamics or exploitation levels. In the Western Ghats of India, part of a global biodiversity hotspot and an exceptional region of freshwater fish diversity and endemism, several small species of...

In Keskar et al. (2015) we emended the original name Cobitis rupelli Sykes, 1839, because Sykes (1839) specifically mentions that the species was named after Rüppell. The specific epithet 'rupelli', with a single 'p', is an incorrect original spelling and should be emended into 'ruppelli' as required by Article 32.5 (International Commission on Zoo...

p>Length-weight (LWR) and length-length (LLR) relationships of seven loach species (Teleostei: Cypriniformes): Botia striata, Lepidocephalichthys thermalis, Paracanthocobitis mooreh, Indoreonectes evezardi, Nemacheilus anguilla, Nemachilichthys rueppelli and Schistura denisoni were studied from five localities within the Krishna River system of the...

The hill-stream loach genus Nemachilichthys, an endemic of the Western Ghats of India, comprises two nominal species, N. rueppelli and N. shimogensis. The validity of the latter has been questioned by several authors. Here we show that there is only a marginal raw mitochondrial genetic distance (0.5% in cytochrome oxidase subunit I and 1.2% in cyto...

Hillstream loaches of the families Balitoridae and Nemccheilidae are relatively less studied in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra. Currently, only one species of balitorid loach, viz. Balitora laticauda Bhoite, Jadhav & Dahanukar, 2012, and five species of nemacheilid loaches, viz. Acanthocobitis mooreh (Sykes, 1839), Indoreonectes evezardi (Day, 18...