Fish Diversity with Relation to Water Quality of Dhungre Khola, Chitawan

Abstract

Species diversity is acknowledged as foremost trait of ecosystem functioning. Seasonal variation of fish assemblage structure with physico-chemical parameters in Dhungre River were studied based on Stratified random survey conducted during September 2019 to May 2020. Three various seasons each with three different stations were selected for data collection. Shannon‟s diversity index, the Simpson index and evenness index have been used to access the diversity. To explore the fish assemblage structure, fish samples were collected in seasonal basis from three sites of the River by using cast net and gill net. A total of 2200 individuals belonging to 7 orders, 11 families, 20 genera and 26 species were collected from Kathar, Botte and Bachauli of Dhungre River. The most abundant species were Puntius sophore followed by Puntius ticto and Schistura devdevi. The topmost Shannon‟s diversity index (2.66) and Simpson index (0.81) were recorded during autumn and winter season respectively. For the station-wise diversity, station 1 had the greatest Shannon's diversity index (2.89) and Simpson index (0.85) of fish. The CCA analysis showed that the fish assemblage was highly correlated with temperature. On the other hand, velocity and DO negatively correlated with carbon dioxide and slightly correlated with pH. Present study could be accountable for further exploration of fish diversity, water parameters or other relevant topics in future. Imposing fisheries regulations to reduce human activities are inevitable to sustain multitudinous fisheries.