Dr. Ankita Rajpoot

Etymologically derived from Anglo-French vultur, Old French voutoir, voutre from Latin vultur, earlier voltur, and perhaps related to vellere- "to pluck, to tear"-the generic name ‘vulture’ does little justice to the immense ecological role that vultures play in maintaining the life support system of mother Earth. Given the wide range of topo-geographical features present in the State of Uttarakhand, all the 9 species of vultures of the Indian sub-continent are found here. However, the rapid and alarming decline in vulture population is a matter of great concern for all concerned. And therefore, there is an urgent need to identify the causes of decline and other threats that plague the vulture population in the country, especially in the State of Uttarakhand.

Non-invasive sampling is one of the most authentic techniques for the genetic study of endangered and rare animal species. In the present study based on non-invasive samples, we give the preliminary genetic documentation of snake species by using cytochrome b (Cyt b) and cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) universal mitochondrial primers from Uttarakhand (UK), India. We sampled n=11 shed skin of unknown snake species from four different locations in Uttarakhand, India. The success rate of genomic DNA isolation, PCR amplification, and sequencing from collected samples was 100%. Afterward, in the genetics analysis, 8 out of 11 samples matched with Least Concern ver3.1 Rat snake species, two samples paired with Checkered keelback snake, and one sample matched with Indian cobra. Subsequently, 149 (Cyt b) and 207 (COI) species-specific fixed SNPs were observed. The obtained interspecific sequences divergences based on two mitochondrial loci among three snake species also show the high v...

The present study represents first genetic record of single spider species <i>Araniella cucurbitina</i>, genus <i>Araniella</i> from Uttarakhand, India. There are 12 identified species under <i>Araniella</i> genus and they are distributed in Palearctic region. Here, we used known N = 47 (2 from present study and 45 from GenBank) cytochrome oxidase 1 (CO1) sequences of <i>A. cucurbitina</i> representing seven different geographical groups, additionally 23 sequences of eight <i>Araniella</i> species were used for phylogenetic relationship. The CO1 (561 bp) sequences of <i>A. cucurbitina</i> consisted of <i>n</i> = 14 haplotypes, where haplotype 14 (Hap 14) represents Indian species, while all 13 haplotypes (Hap1–13) shared between six <i>A. cucurbitina</i> groups. The overall 'h' and 'π' diversities among seven groups of <i>A. cucurbitina</i> were 0.85291 and 0.0...

Species identification from the samples obtained in wildlife crime cases usually presents a difficult challenge for forensic science investigators. The present paper describes a short study where a blood stain sample was recovered from an area outside the protected area network and used to determine a species identity. The mitochondrial DNA region of the questioned sample was amplified and sequenced using universal primers of cytochrome b gene (Cyt b) and 16S ribosomal RNA (16S rRNA) for species identity. The obtained sequencing results were compared with the most homologous sequences extracted from the NCBI-GenBank database. A phylogenetic tree was prepared with the aligned sequences to determine the species identity with strong bootstrap support. The mean distance and species score generated revealed that the grade of sequence similarity showed maximum homology (100 %) with the sequence obtained from the database. Based on the genetic analysis, the collected sample related to Indi...

Pangolins are a group of eight endangered mammalian species included in the family Manidae (Order Pholidota) and divided into four each African (Arboreal species; Phataginus tetradactyla, Phataginus tricuspis, Ground dwelling species; Smutsia gigantea and Smutsia temminckii) and Asian (Ground dwelling; Manis crassicaudata, Manis pentadactyla, Manis javanica and Manis culionensis) species. The taxonomy of all the eight extant pangolin species based on molecular genetics studies, remains unresolved and poorly examined. The present study is to address this lacuna by studying the phylogenetic, taxonomic status and molecular dating of Indian pangolin with other six out of eight extant pangolins (Sunda pangolin possibly extinct) based on complete coding region of mitochondrial cytochrome b gene. Overall sequences divergence among pangolins ranged between 0.01 ± 0.01 and 0.26 ± 0.03, where within 'Manis' it ranged between 0.01 ± 0.01 and 0.14 ± 0.03. Cytochrome b sequences based ph...

The present study represents first genetic record of single spider species Araniella cucurbitina, genus Araniella from Uttarakhand, India. There are 12 identified species under Araniella genus and they are distributed in Palearctic region. Here, we used known N = 47 (2 from present study and 45 from GenBank) cytochrome oxidase 1 (CO1) sequences of A. cucurbitina representing seven different geographical groups, additionally 23 sequences of eight Araniella species were used for phylogenetic relationship. The CO1 (561 bp) sequences of A. cucurbitina consisted of n = 14 haplotypes, where haplotype 14 (Hap 14) represents Indian species, while all 13 haplotypes (Hap1-13) shared between six A. cucurbitina groups. The overall 'h' and 'π' diversities among seven groups of A. cucurbitina were 0.85291 and 0.00888, respectively, while overall evolutionary divergence was 0.04. The Indian Hap 14, showed minimum sequence divergence (0.02) from Italy and Czech Republic haplotypes (Hap 6), it means it is the closest group compared to others. Evolutionary divergence among eight species of Araniella ranges from 0.003 to 0.114. The maximum likelihood (ML) topology based on 14 haplotypes of A. cucurbitina was divided into two major clades and further two subclades. Furthermore, ML topology between eight species of Araniella was divided into three major clades, where A. cucurbitina and A. proxima clustered together in clade 'A', while six others were present together in clade 'B' and 'C'. This study helps to identify the Indian species from the rest of Araniella species and other cucurbitina population across the world. This study further needs to be on a large scale to know the exact status distribution and molecular phylogeography of this single species of genus Araniella from India.