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This research article investigates the impact of using a Monopoly Board Game (MBG) in the teaching learning process of financial statement analysis (FSA) to information technology management students, who earlier had little or no finance or accounting prior educational background. The subjects were students (N=159) in an Indian University. The study; first, narrated the process of administering MBG; second, quantitatively analyzed the learning experience through a structured questionnaire to validate the research objectives. The study resulted in the creation of three factor-clusters namely cognizance, collaboration, and enthusiasm which impacted students' MBG learning experience over the traditional teaching-learning methods. Results showed that factors relating to cognizance are more impacting than collaboration and enthusiasm. In the future, this research can be extended to advanced finance courses and can be integrated with relevant educational theories that underpin teaching-learning processes in higher education to other disciplines.

The historical processes underlying high diversity in tropical biodiversity hotspots like the Western Ghats of Peninsular India remain poorly understood. We sampled bush frogs on 13 massifs across the Western Ghats Escarpment and examined the relative influence of Quaternary glaciations, ecological gradients and geological processes on the spatial patterns of lineage and clade diversification. The results reveal a large in situ radiation (more than 60 lineages), exhibiting geographical structure and clade-level endemism, with two deeply divergent sister clades, North and South, highlighting the biogeographic significance of an ancient valley, the PalghatGap.Amajority of the bush frog sister lineages were isolated on adjacent massifs, and signatures of range stasis provide support for the dominance of geological processes in allopatric speciation. In situ diversification events within the montane zones (more than 1800 m) of the two highest massifs suggest a role for climate-mediated forest-grassland persistence. Independent transitions along elevational gradients among sub-clades during the Miocene point to diversification along the elevational gradient. The study highlights the evolutionary significance of massifs in theWestern Ghats with the high elevations acting as centres of lineage diversification and the low- and mid-elevations of the southern regions, with deeply divergent lineages, serving as museums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aquaculture development has raised many environmental concerns worldwide due to its unregulated and unplanned expansion and outshined the advantages of increasing fish production by utilizing unused lands. The present study aimed to identify suitable sites for aquaculture by integrating land resources availability, source water bodies characteristics, unproductive lands soil quality, and infrastructure support into existing national aquaculture developmental laws using a spatial decision support system at Puducherry Union Territory, India. The seventeen influencing factors have been measured, mapped, quantified, and integrated through pairwise matrix based sensitive analysis and Geographical Information System (GIS). The spatial regulations of the Coastal Aquaculture Authority Act (2005) of India were applied to remove restricted regions such as mangroves, agricultural lands, lands used for other purposes, lands up to 200 m from high tide lines. Also, suitable buffer zones were established between the productive resources before delineating the potential aquaculture zones. The results showed that 416 ha was available for aquaculture, including 244 ha in most suitable, 81 ha in suitable, and 91 ha in moderately suitable classification levels. Combining sensitivity analysis and spatial model into resource characteristics, land availability, and aquaculture regulation laws will direct aquaculture sustainably and responsibly while protecting the other productive ecosystems characteristics. • Unplanned aquaculture has raised environmental issues worldwide. • Spatial data and techniques offer the way for regulated aquaculture planning. • The study combined land use, water, soil & infrastructure into policy guidelines. • Allocating spaces after spatial analysis for aquaculture promotes sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Indian women famous for wearing the silk saris (silk cloth materials or pattu sarees). • This has yarns with natural dyes prepared from different plants (eg. Curcuma aromaticum, Lawsonia inermis). • Medicinal plants like Cinnamomum verum. L and Nigella sativa. L is important sources of income for the rural Pachamalai hills people. The present study aimed to identify plants used by tribal people in the Pachamalai hills located in Tiruchirappalli district of Tamil Nadu, India and to document the local names, medicinal uses, methods of preparation and other applications of the collected plants. This is the first report from this area from an ethnobotanical perspective in which statistical calculation is carried out by cultural index (CI) for the reported plants. Data was collected using a questionnaire through interviews with Malayali ethnic people in the study area. The data collected was analyzed through use reports (UR) informant consensus factor (Fic) and relative frequency citation (RFC). Plant samples were collected identified and then processed as voucher specimens following standard ethnobotanical practice. A total of 103 plant species were recorded, divided into 92 genera and 57 families. These plants were mainly used as leaves (41 %), fruit (12 %), seed (11 %), root (7%), stem (7 %), bark (7 %), rhizome (4 %), flower (4 %), whole plant (3 %), latex, shoot, bulb and tuber (each 1%). Most of the 16 ailment categories recorded a high level of informant agreement (mean Fic = 0.78) and besides being used as medicinal plants, they also had other uses such as food and fuel (wood for fire). The semi-arid climate of Pachamalai hills has rich vegetation with many medicinal and economically important plants available in the area. The most commonly cited plants Nigella sativa, Cinnamomum verum and Santalum album need further phytochemical and associated pharmacological studies to establish their clinical efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several anuran species use multimodal signals to communicate in diverse social contexts. Our study describes acoustic and visual behaviours of the Small Torrent Frog (Micrixalus aff. saxicola), a diurnal frog endemic to the Western Ghats of India. During agonistic interactions males display advertisement calls, foot-flagging and tapping (foot lifting) behaviours to signal the readiness to defend perching sites in perennial streams. Results from a quantitative video analysis of male-male interactions indicate that foot-flagging displays were used as directional signals toward the opponent male, but were less abundant than calls. The acoustic and visual signals were not functionally linked. The call of Micrixalus aff. saxicola thereby did not act as an alert signal. Analysis of behavioural transitions revealed that kicking behaviours (physical attacks) significantly elicited kicks from interacting males. We suggest that foot-flagging displays ritualized from this frequently observed fighting technique to reduce physical attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.

The Western Ghats are well known as a biodiversity hotspot, but the full extent of its snake diversity is yet to be uncovered. Here, we describe a new genus and species of vine snake Proahaetulla antiqua gen. et sp. nov., from the Agasthyamalai hills in the southern Western Ghats. It was found to be a member of the Ahaetuliinae clade, which currently comprises the arboreal snake genera Ahaetulla, Dryophiops, Dendrelaphis and Chrysopelea, distributed in South and Southeast Asia. Proahaetulla shows a sister relationship with all currently known taxa belonging to the genus Ahaetulla, and shares ancestry with Dryophiops. In addition to its phylogenetic position and significant genetic divergence, this new taxon is also different in morphology from members of Ahaetuliinae in a combination of characters, having 12-13 partially serrated keels on the dorsal scale rows, 20 maxillary teeth and 3 postocular scales. Divergence dating reveals that the new genus is ancient, dating back to the Mid-Oligocene, and is one of the oldest persisting monotypic lineages of snakes in the Western Ghats. This discovery adds to the growing list of ancient lineages endemic to the Agasthyamalai hills and underscores the biogeographic significance of this isolated massif in the southern Western Ghats., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Lizards of the genus Calotes are geographically restricted to South Asia, Indo-China and parts of Southeast Asia. The greatest diversity of the genus is from the biodiversity hotspots in South Asia: Western Ghats (Peninsular India), Sri Lanka and Indo-Burma. Here, we present a systematic revision of members of the genus Calotes from Peninsular India using a combination of molecular phylogeny, geographical distribution and morphological characters. We show that Calotes from the Western Ghats is paraphyletic and consists of three major clades, one of which is widely distributed in South and Southeast (SE) Asia, while the others are restricted to Peninsular India. The Peninsular Indian clade is composed of two sister clades: Psammophilus, with a wider distribution and a second clade, composed of two extant species, Calotes rouxii and Calotes ellioti and two new species, all restricted to the Western Ghats region. Based on morphological differences, we retain the generic status of Psammophilus and assign its sister clade to a new genus Monilesaurus gen. nov. and transfer the following species, C. rouxii and C. ellioti, to this new genus. We also provide diagnoses and descriptions for two new species recognized within Monilesaurus gen. nov. In addition, Calotes aurantolabium from the Western Ghats was observed to be deeply divergent and to share a sister-relationship with the clade composed of Calotes, Monilesaurus gen. nov., and Psammophilus. Based on its phylogenetic position and morphological attributes, we assign this species to a new genus Microauris gen. nov. These new discoveries highlight the evolutionary significance of the Western Ghats in housing novel lizard diversity.

Bush frogs of the genus Raorchestes are distributed mainly in the Western Ghats Escarpment of Peninsular India. The inventory of species in this genus is incomplete and there is ambiguity in the systematic status of species recognized by morphological criteria. To address the dual problem of taxon sampling and systematic uncertainty in bush frogs, we used a large-scale spatial sampling design, explicitly incorporating the geographic and ecological heterogeneity of the Western Ghats. We then used a hierarchical multi-criteria approach by combining mitochondrial phylogeny, genetic distance, geographic range, morphology and advertisement call to delimit bush frog lineages. Our analyses revealed the existence of a large number of new lineages with varying levels of genetic divergence. Here, we provide diagnoses and descriptions for nine lineages that exhibit divergence across multiple axes. The discovery of new lineages that exhibit high divergence across wide ranges of elevation and across the major massifs highlights the large gaps in historical sampling. These discoveries underscore the significance of addressing inadequate knowledge of species distribution, namely the "Wallacean shortfall", in addressing the problem of taxon sampling and unknown diversity in tropical hotspots. A biogeographically informed sampling and analytical approach was critical in detecting and delineating lineages in a consistent manner across the genus. Through increased taxon sampling, we were also able to discern a number of well-supported sub-clades that were either unresolved or absent in earlier phylogenetic reconstructions and identify a number of shallow divergent lineages which require further examination for assessment of their taxonomic status.