Significant decline of ecosystem service valuation and carbon stocks through changing land use patterns of Ayodhya hill range (extended part of Chhota Nagpur Plateau), India

Environment or natural capitals provide multiple ecosystem services (ESs) and benefits to people. The approach of ecosystem service values (ESVs) describes the market values of the ecosystem products or services. The changes of ecosystem service valuation and carbon stocks significantly dropped in Ayodhya hill range (extended part of Chhota Nagpur plateau of India) due to rapid land use modification. The principal objectives of this research are (i) to determine the spatiotemporal changing pattern of ESVs through different unit values (for the year 1975, 2000 and 2021) (ii) to analyze the carbon sequestration through InVEST carbon model and (iii) to assess gross primary product (GPP) using MOD17 model. The ESVs result shows that total ESVs over Ayodhya hill range are 256.67, 258.60 and 239.78 million USD for 1975, 2000 and 2021 respectively. Total 16.90 million USD loss has been observed over the study area during the overall study period. Cropland has the highest ESVs due to its high unit values along with high proportion of area. Total 1000759 mg reduction of stored carbon has been estimated whereas a sharp decline of GPP (97.03 gC m-2 year-1) has also been observed during the research period (1975-2021). So, various integrated sustainable environmental management techniques should immediately apply over this nature based economic region for the benefits of local tribal people.

A deeply divergent lineage of Walkerana (Anura: Ranixalidae) from the Western Ghats of Peninsular India

The frog family Ranixalidae is endemic to the Western Ghats of Peninsular India and contains two genera, Indirana and Walkerana. The three known species of Walkerana are restricted to different hill ranges south of the Palghat Gap, an ancient valley in the Western Ghats. In this study, we report the discovery of a deeply divergent lineage of Walkerana from the high elevations of the Elivalmalai hill range. This finding extends the geographic range of the Walkerana clade to the north of the Palghat Gap. The new species Walkerana muduga sp. nov. is genetically and morphologically divergent, and geographically isolated from its sister lineages. We also recovered a potential new lineage in the adjoining hill ranges suggesting the presence of additional new species in this genus north of the Palghat Gap.

First record in 129 years of the Tamil Treebrown Lethe drypetis todara Moore, 1881 (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae: Satyrinae) from Odisha, India by fruit-baiting

The first record of a butterfly species, the Tamil Treebrown Lethe drypetis todara Moore, 1881 (Nymphalidae: Satyrinae) is described from Deomali Hill range of southern Odisha, in Eastern Ghats of India, collected by fruit-baiting. This is the first record from Odisha almost 129 years after its first report from Khurda in coastal Odisha by Taylor & de Niceville in the year 1888. The ecology and sampling of the species are described in this study.

A distinct new species of riparian rock-dwelling gecko (genus: Hemidactylus) from the southern Western Ghats

We describe a new species of rock-dwelling gecko, Hemidactylus paaragowlipaaragowli sp. nov., from the Agastyamalai Hill Range, in the southern Western Ghats. Morphological and molecular data support the distinctiveness of the species and its close relationship to other large-bodied, tuberculate Hemidactylus spp. from the H. prashadi group from India and Sri Lanka. This species belongs to a rupicolous complex and can be distinguished from other members of the group based on the following characters: 22–24 longitudinal rows of fairly regularly arranged, subtrihedral, weakly keeled, striated tubercles at midbody; 9–11 and 10–12 subdigital lamellae on the first and fourth digits, respectively, of both manus and pes; tail with transverse series of four enlarged tubercles on each tail segment; 10–12 femoral pores on each side separated by 16–18 scales without pores; 11–13 supralabials and 9–10 infralabials.