Indian Galapagos islands: Hyderabad scientists dive into Western Ghats’ biodiversity 

The Western Ghats are arguably far more diverse and rich in animal and plant life, which is where top biological and genetic scientists from Hyderabad are involved in some cutting-edge research in unraveling and chronicling the rich local biodiversity

Hyderabad: Remember Galapagos Islands that became famous after Charles Darwin visited them in 1835 and later came up with the theory of evolution of natural selection?

Well, there are more biodiverse regions than the Galapagos Islands, right in our own backyard. Yes, the Western Ghats are arguably far more diverse and rich in animal and plant life, which is where top biological and genetic scientists from Hyderabad are involved in some cutting-edge research in unraveling and chronicling the rich local biodiversity.

Senior scientist from Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular biology (CCMB), Dr Jahnavi Joshi and her team members, who are in the midst of an exhaustive biodiversity study of Western Ghats, in one of their papers, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society’ (April, 2023), said that Western Ghats (WG) mountain chain is a global biodiversity hotspot with high diversity and endemicity of woody plants.

Western Ghats cover 5 per cent of the Indian land and contribute to nearly 40 per cent of India’s total biodiversity. The Ghats harbor over 8000 plants and 7000 animal species, including insects, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, birds and mammals, the researchers said.

“We examined the distribution of 470 species based on distribution modeling and occurrence locations across the entire region. In accordance with the expectation, we found that the southern WG is both a museum and cradle of woody plant evolutionary diversity, as a higher proportion of both old and young evolutionary lineages are restricted to the southern WG,” the researchers in the paper said.

During their study of the spread of different organisms in Western Ghats, the Jahnavi Joshi research team traced the ancestries of centipedes, millipedes and woody plants that have been around for millions of years, through DNA analysis.

In fact, about a year ago, the group showed that the centipedes (Scutigeromorpha) from Western Ghats have most possibly descended from ancient organisms that originated from the supercontinent of Gondwana. The research clearly links the Indian subcontinent and the Australian continent because both were part of the Gondwana.

Some important points:

Why study Western Ghats?

• It is one of the top biodiversity hotspot in the world

• Has more than 1500 endemic plant species

• There are approximately 100 species of mammals of which 11 per cent are endemic

• Close to 200 species each of amphibians and reptiles

• 300 species of freshwater fish and 500 species of birds and 600 species of trees

• Scientists trying to figure out why there is so much biodiversity in Western Ghats