Discovery of a new Myristica swamp in the Northern Western Ghats of India

Myristica swamps are one of the world’s unique freshwater ecosystems. In recent years there has been an increase in the number of reports about their distribution along the western Ghats. In the current paper, we report a new distribution record for the occurrence of Myristica Swamp from the northern part of the western Ghats of Maharastra. The Myristica swamp is located within the Bhalandeshwar Sacred Grove of Kumbral Bagwadi, Dodamarg Maharastra, India. This forms a second report from the state of Maharastra. Frequent field visits were made to study and document the floral assemblage and biodiversity in the swamp from, November 2023 to January 2024. The swamp is dominated by Myristica magnifica Bedd. The swamp is a part of a sacred grove and it is protected by Villagers due to religious beliefs. The discovery of this swamp points towards the possibility of the occurrence of more swamps in this region. Hence there is a need for a systematic survey for documenting swamps in the different areas.

Myristica swamps represent highly important yet one of the threatened freshwater ecosystems of the world.As the name suggests, the plants of the family Myristicaceae dominate the swamps.They offer various ecological services, such as providing fruits of Myristica, which are an important source of food for the threatened hornbills and the habitat for the vulnerable Asian Short-clawed Otters Aonyx cinereus.The high watershed value of these swamps supports many rare, endemic flora and fauna (Chandran et al. 2010).With an evolutionary origin of about 140 million years, the swamps are valuable for evolutionary studies (Chandran et al. 1999;Dharmapalan & Asokhan 2013).Krishnamoorthy (1960) for the first time, shed light on the occurrence of this unique ecosystem from the south Western Ghats of Kerala, India.Since then, their occurrence has also been studied and reported in the states of Karnataka, Goa, and Maharashtra (Gadgil & Chandran 1989;Santhakumaran et al. 1995;Sreedharan & Indulkar 2018).The Myristica swamp reported from Bambarde-Hewale (Sreedharan & Indulkar 2018) of Maharashtra forms the first record of the presence of such an ecosystem in the state and the northernmost record in the Western Ghats.
The literature survey indicates that the swamps have restricted distribution along the Western Ghats of India, occurring in small fragmented areas.In this communication, it is reported that a new site where a Myristica swamp was found in Maharashtra State, India.Pravin Desai runs a homestay and conducts wildlife trails in the different parts of Dodamarg Tilari Bioregion in Dodamarg Taluka of Sindhudurg District of Maharashtra.

Methods
During the regular birding trail to Bhalandeshwar Sacred Grove, while searching for Brown Wood-Owls Strix leptogrammica, Pravin observed a huge tree of Myristica magnifica Bedd.which led to him discovering the Myristica swamp.This finding was subsequently followed by visits to the swamp for further studies.The plants were identified using the book 'Trees of Sahyadri' a leaf-based field guide by Shrikant Ingalharikar and by consulting Dr. Navendu Page.
The area of the sacred grove and the area of the swamp were estimated within the sacred grove using Garmin GPS 72s by walking around the grove and swamp.All the trees in the swamp with a girth at breast height (GBH) of ≥ 30 cm by using a measuring tape, and height by using a Leica geosystem D1 distometer.For Myristica magnifica, an obligate swamp specialist, the height and girth of all individuals were recorded.For trees having less than 1.3 cm in height, their girth was visually estimated.Tree seedlings (GBH <10 cm) were enumerated from the sample plots to determine the regeneration status of tree species in the Myristica swamps.Additionally, a checklist was made for other woody plant species to understand the species diversity and identify the associated species in the area.The checklist contains the list of species arranged alphabetically with their conservation status available on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) website.Plants of the World Online (POWO) and The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) were used for nomenclature.

Results
The Myristica swamp is located in Bhalandeshwar Sacred Grove at Kumbral Bagwadi (Image 1).The swamp is dominated by Myristica magnifica, which has prominent stilt roots (Image 1).The area of the grove and swamp is 8200 m² and 770 m², respectively.A total of 39 plant species were documented (Table 1, Images 3 & 4     that the swamp species exhibit low species evenness, with Myristica magnifica being the dominant species in the swamp (Figure 3).The undergrowth in the swamp is dominated by the fern Bolbitis presiliana (T.Moore) Ching and Pandanus furcatus Roxb (Image 2).

Discussion
The local communities worship the deity Bhalandeshwar, who is believed to be an avatar of Lord Shiva and they have been performing religious rituals since the 16 th century.The local people practice the ritual of 'Kaul' to seek permission or answers to their questions.During the temple renovation, they sought permission from the deity Bhalandeshwar to cut and use the tree of Myristica for construction.However, they did not receive a positive Kaul from the deity, and thus, the swamp was protected.The spring that emerges at the temple, serves as a source of drinking water for local people.The swamps offer various ecological services, like groundwater recharge, carbon sequestration, natural barriers against floods, habitat, and food for many aquatic and aerial fauna.The fruits of Myristica are important food plants for threatened hornbills (Gopal et al. 2021).The occurrence and discovery of this second swamp in the northern Western Ghats of Maharashtra strongly point toward the possibility of more swamps in this region.Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a systematic survey to record the presence of marshes in Map showing the location of Bhalandeshwar Sacred Grove and the Myristica swamp as of 16 December 2023.
). Around 70 individuals of Myristica magnifica were recorded, out of which 19 individuals with a girth of ≥30 cm and 51 individuals with a girth of <30 cm.Given that 51 out of 70 individuals were <30 cm indicating regeneration of the Myristica magnifica.The size class plot for girth and height is given in Figures Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org| 26 August 2024 | 16(8): 25779-25786 25781 J TT

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Histogram of girth at breast height of Myristica magnifica individuals that were >1.3 cm in height.

Figure 2 .Figure 3 .
Figure 2. Histogram showing Myristica magnifica tree height distributions in the swamp.There is a greater representation of saplings indicating the regeneration of trees in the swamp.

Table 1 . Checklist of plants documented in the Myristica swamp of Bhalandeshwar. Species name Family Habit IUCN Red List status
1Actephila excelsa (Dalzell) Müll.Arg.