A Comparative Study of Fish Assemblage and Diversity Indices in two Different Aquatic Habitats in Bangladesh: Lakhandaha Wetland and Atari River

摘要

This study on fish assemblage and diversity indices in two different aquatic habitats namely Lakhandaha wetland and Atari River was carried out from June 2015 to November 2015. A total of sixty-two species which comprise ten orders and twenty-one families were recorded where thirty-eight of the species belong to the Lakhandaha wetland (LW) and fifty species were from Atari River (AR). The best-represented family in both habitats of the LW and AR was Cyprinidae comprising 42.11 % and 40.00 % of the total fish species, respectively. Multivariate analyses (ANOSIM and MDS) showed a significant difference (ANOSIM, P 0.002, R = 0.99) in the species numbers between the two habitats. In case of similarity percentages analysis, the overall average dissimilarity of the two habitats was 63.38 %; eleven species were found responsible for this dissimilarity. The mean Simpson dominance index, the Shannon-Wiener diversity index, Pielou’s evenness index and Margalef’s richness index in the LW and AR habitats were counted as 0.91 and 0.94, 2.77 and 3.12, 0.67 and 0.66, and 4.83 and 5.87, respectively. Based on Shannon-Wiener diversity index, the Mann-Whitney U test showed a significant difference between the two habitats (U = 2.500, P = 0.012) and confirmed that the AR habitat was more diverse in the fish population than the LW habitat.