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Faunal Diversity at Ecosystem Level in India: Dynamics and Status

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Biodiversity in India: Status, Issues and Challenges

Abstract

India is the seventh-largest country in the world, lying entirely in the northern hemisphere, representing two of the major realms, Indo-Malayan and the Palaearctic (high Himalayas), with a wide variety of landforms and climates, ending in habitats ranging from tropical to temperate and from alpine to Desert. With over 150,000 species of flora and fauna and a high level of endemism, distributed in varied ecosystems such as the Himalayas, hot and cold deserts, grassland, forests, freshwater, marine, estuarine, mangroves, seaweeds, seagrass, and coral reefs, the country is one of 17 globally identified megadiverse countries. The country’s overall faunal diversity at present includes 103,445 faunal species in different phyla of Animalia and Protista, with a majority of species (93,013) being invertebrates, followed by vertebrates (6887) and protozoans (3545). About two-thirds of species (77,560) belong to the phylum Arthropoda, including 67,111 species of hexapods, 6082 species of arachnids, 3946 species of crustaceans, 272 species of millipedes, 101 species of centipedes, 36 species of Pycnogonida, ten species of Symphyla, and two species of Merostomata. There are 430 species of mammals, 1345 species of birds, 670 species of reptiles, 433 species of amphibians, and 3472 species of fishes reported from India, for about 9.4% of the global vertebrate diversity. Of India’s overall fauna, 718 species are categorized as threatened per IUCN Red List, including 92 species as Critically Endangered, 224 species as Endangered, and 402 species as Vulnerable. This chapter discusses India’s diverse fauna in different ecosystems and ten different biogeographic zones.

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Acknowledgement

We thank the Director, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata, for providing the necessary facilities and support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

    Kailash Chandra & Devanshu Gupta

Authors
  1. Kailash Chandra
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  2. Devanshu Gupta
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Panjab University, Chandigarh, India

    Shalinder Kaur

  2. Panjab University, Chandigarh, India

    D.R. Batish

  3. Panjab University, Chandigarh, India

    H.P. Singh

  4. Amity University, Mohali, Chandigarh, Chandigarh, India

    Ravinder Kohli

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Chandra, K., Gupta, D. (2022). Faunal Diversity at Ecosystem Level in India: Dynamics and Status. In: Kaur, S., Batish, D., Singh, H., Kohli, R. (eds) Biodiversity in India: Status, Issues and Challenges. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-9777-7_18

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