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The increasing loss of biodiversity globally has led to numerous proposals to intensify efforts to produce a census of all biological diversity and to modernize taxonomy. Over the years, a steady decline has been observed in the abundance and diversity of native fishes in the rivers due to anthropogenic disturbances. The present study was carried out on fish diversity from the major rivers and their tributaries in the Amravati district including the Melghat landscape in Maharashtra. The study was conducted from December 2022 to May 2024. Muscle and fin tissue was collected onsite by following standard protocols to avoid contamination. In this study, a total of 46 species belonging to 36 genera, 16 families, were DNA barcoded using the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene. All of the fish species were discriminated by their COI sequences, showing deep genetic divergence, and were highlighted for further taxonomic investigation. Average Kimura 2-parameter genetic distances within species of families like Channidae, Cyprinidae, and other families 0.75%, 0.82%, and 0.97% are respectively. These values show that COI divergence increases as taxa become less exclusive. Devario aequipinnatus from the family Cyprinidae showed the highest overall GC content at 40.00% , Oreochromis mossambius from the family Chhichlidae had the lowest 28.57% indicating the divergence in the nucleotide composition of fishes. All of the COI sequences obtained were grouped according to their species designation in the maximum likelihood tree that was constructed using MEGA 11 software. This study demonstrated that DNA barcoding has great potential as a tool for fast and accurate species identification and also for highlighting species that warrant further taxonomic investigation.
Vaishnavi S Kuralkar (Tue,) studied this question.