Fish communities and associated habitat variables in the upper Subansiri River of Arunachal Pradesh, eastern Himalaya, India
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Ecological information on the rivers of eastern Himalaya, specifically the state of Arunachal Pradesh is not studied well. The present study describes fish assemblage patterns and deriving relationships between local habitat variables in the upper reaches of Subansiri River, Arunachal Pradesh. This study was carried out during October to November 2014 and February to March 2015. A total of 26 fish species belonging to eight families were recorded, in which eight species are endemic to the eastern Himalayan region. Fish species richness varied from two to 18 species in the upper reaches of Subansiri River and high species diversity was recorded in Sigin Stream (H’=2.76). Based on the seven habitat variables (water velocity, depth, channel width, percentage of substrate composition, percentage of riparian vegetation, altitude, and water temperature) then streams were categorized into lower-order and higher-order streams using principal component analysis (PCA). The site-wise fish abundance data along with habitat variable information was then subjected to the canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) for testing the association of habitat variables on fish abundance. The CCA results revealed that the abundance of large-size barbs, Neolissochilus hexagonolepis, N. nigrovittatus, Schizothorax progastus, and S. richardsonii were strongly associated with high altitude, water velocity, rich dissolved oxygen, and good riparian vegetation. On the other hand, Channa gachua, Botia rostrata, Danio rerio, Devario aequipinnatus, and Garra nasuta showed strong association with warm water streams with more conductivity.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors own the copyright to the articles published in JoTT. This is indicated explicitly in each publication. The authors grant permission to the publisher Wildlife Information Liaison Development (WILD) Society to publish the article in the Journal of Threatened Taxa. The authors recognize WILD as the original publisher, and to sell hard copies of the Journal and article to any buyer. JoTT is registered under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY), which allows authors to retain copyright ownership. Under this license the authors allow anyone to download, cite, use the data, modify, reprint, copy and distribute provided the authors and source of publication are credited through appropriate citations (e.g., Son et al. (2016). Bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera) of the southeastern Truong Son Mountains, Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam. Journal of Threatened Taxa 8(7): 8953–8969. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.2785.8.7.8953-8969). Users of the data do not require specific permission from the authors or the publisher.
References
Ambrosio, J.L.D., L.R. Williams, J.D. Witter & A. Ward (2009). Effects of geomorphology, habitat, and spatial location on fish assemblages in a watershed in Ohio, USA. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 148: 325–341. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-008-0163-3
Anderson, A., C. Hubbs, O. Kirk & R.J.E. Winemiller (1995). Texas freshwater fish assemblages following three decades of environmental change. Southwestern Naturalist 40: 314–321.
Angermeier, P.L. & J.R. Karr (1983). Fish communities along environmental gradient in a system of tropical streams. Environmental Biology of Fishes 9: 117–135.
Angermeier, P.L. & M.R. Winston (1998). Local vs Regional Influences on Local Diversity in Stream Fish Communities of Virginia. Ecology 79(3): 911–927.
Atkore, V.M., K. Sivakumar & A.J.T. Johnsingh (2011). Patterns of diversity and conservation status of freshwater fishes in the tributaries of River Ramganga in the Shiwaliks of the Western Himalaya. Current Science 100(5): 731–736.
Bagra, K., K. Kadu, K. Nebeshwar-Sharma, B.A. Laskar, U.K. Sarkar & D.N. Das (2009). Ichthyological survey and review of the checklist of fish fauna of Arunachal Pradesh, India. Check List 5(2): 330–350.
Bakalial, B., S.P. Biswas, S. Borah & D. Baruah (2014). Checklist of fishes of Lower Subansiri River drainage, northeast India. Annals of Biological Research 5(2): 55−67.
Bhat, A. (2004). Patterns in the distribution of freshwater fishes in rivers of Central Western Ghats, India and their associations with environmental gradients. Hydrobiologia 529: 83–97. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-004-4949-1
Bistoni, M.A. & A.C. Hued (2002). Patterns of fish species richness in rivers of the central region of Argentina. Brazilian Journal of Biology 62(4B): 753–764. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1519-69842002000500004
Fausch, K.D. & K.R. Bestgen (1997). Ecology of fishes indigenous to the central and southwestern Great Plains. Springer-Verlag, New York, 131–166pp.
Ferreira, M.T., L. Sousa, J.M. Santos, L. Reino, J. Oliveira, P.R. Almeida & R.V. Cortes (2007). Regional and local environmental correlates of native Iberian fish fauna. Ecology of Freshwater Fish 16(4): 504–514. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0633.2007.00241.x
Fricke, R., W.N. Eschmeyer & R. van der Laan (eds) (2020). Eschmeyer’s Catalog of Fishes: genera, species, references. Electronic version accessed 13052020. http://www.calacademy.org/scientists/catalog-of-fishes-classification/
Gorman, O.T. & J.R. Karr (1978). Habitat structure and stream fish communities. Ecology 59: 507–515.
Guisan, A. & N.E. Zimmermann (2000). Predictive habitat distribution models in ecology. Ecological Modeling 135: 147–186.
Hammer, Ø., D.A.T. Harper, & P.D. Ryan (2001). PAST: Paleontological Statistics Software Package for Education and Data Analysis. Palaeontologia Electronica 4(1): 9pp.
Horwitz, R.J. (1978). Temporal variability patterns and distributional patterns of stream fishes. Ecological monographs 48: 307–321
Jayaram, K.C. (2010). Freshwater Fishes of Indian Region. 2nd edition. Narendra Publishing House, New Delhi, 616pp.
Johal, M. (2002). Fish diversity in different habitats in the streams of lower middle western Himalayas. Polish Journal of Ecology 50: 45–56.
Johnson, J.A. & M. Arunachalam (2010). Relations of Physical habitat to fish assemblages in streams of Western Ghats, India. Applied Ecology and Environmental Research 8(1): 1–10.
Johnson, J. A., R. Parmar, K. Ramesh, S. Sen & R. Sreenivasamurthy (2012). Fish diversity and assemblage structure in Ken River of Panna landscape, central India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 4(13): 3161–3172. https://doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o3024.3161-72
Johnson, J.A., A. Sharma, V. Rajput, V. Dubey & K. Sivakumar (2020). Taxonomic and guild structure of fish assemblages in the streams of western Himalaya, India. Community Ecology 21: 239–257. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s42974-020-00026-3
Kansal, M.L. & S. Arora (2012). Biodiversity and present status of freshwater fishes in Lohit River basin of India. Environmentalist 32: 58–69. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10669-011-9372-3
Kottelat, M. (1989). Bulletin of Zoological Museum University of Amsterdam 12(1): 1–54.
Lakra, W.S., U.K. Sarkar, R.S. Kumar, A. Pandey, V.K. Dubey & O.P. Gusain (2010). Fish diversity, habitat ecology and their conservation and management issues of a tropical River in Ganga basin, India. Environmentalist 30(4): 306–319. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10669-010-9277-6
Legendre, P. & L. Legendre (1998). Numerical Ecology. 2nd Edition. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 853pp.
Li, J., L. Huang, L. Zou, Y. Kano, T. Sato & T. Yahara (2012). Spatial and temporal variation of fish assemblages and their associations to habitat variables in a mountain stream of north Tiaoxi River, China. Environmental Biology of Fishes 93(3): 403–417. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-011-9928-6
May, J.T. & L.R. Brown (2000). Fish Community Structure in Relation to Environmental Variables Within the Sacramento River Basin and Implications for the Greater Central Valley, USGS Report, California, 25pp.
Mercado-Silva, N., J. Lyons, E. Díaz-Pardo, S. Navarrete & A. Gutiérrez-Hernández (2012). Environmental factors associated with fish assemblage patterns in a high gradient river of the Gulf of Mexico slope. Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad 83: 117–128.
Mondal, R. & A. Bhat (2020). Temporal and environmental drivers of fish-community structure in tropical streams from two contrasting regions in India. PLoS ONE 15(4): e0227354. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227354
Nath, P. & S.C. Dey (1997). Fish and fisheries of North Eastern India. (Arunachal Pradesh). Narendra Publishing House, Delhi, 201pp.
Oakes, R.M., K.B. Gido, J.A. Falke, J.D. Olden & B.L. Brock (2005). Modeling of stream fishes in the Grate Plains, USA. Ecology of Freshwater Fish 14: 361–374.
Platts, W.S. (1979). Relationships among stream order, fish populations and aquatic geomorphology in an Idaho River drainage. Fisheries 4: 5–9.
Poff, N.L. & J.D. Allan (1995). Functional organization of stream fish assemblages in relation to hydrological variability. Ecology 76(2): 606–627. https://doi.org/10.2307/1941217
Pusey, B.J., A.H. Arthington & M.G. Read (1995). Species richness and spatial variation in fish assemblage structure in two rivers of the Wet Tropics of northern Queensland, Australia. Environmental Biology of Fishes 42: 181–199.
Ricklefs, R.E. (1987). Community diversity: relative roles of local and regional processes. Science 235: 167–171.
Shukla, R. & A. Bhat (2017). Environmental drivers of α-diversity patterns in monsoonal tropical stream fish assemblages: a case study from tributaries of Narmada basin, India. Environmental Biology of Fish 100: 749–761. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-017-0601-6
Sivakumar, K. (2008). Species richness, distribution pattern and habitat use of fishes in the Trans-Himalayas, India. Electronic Journal of Ichthyology 1: 31–42.
Suarez, Y.R., M. D’Souza, M. Ferreira, F.S. Pereira, M.J. D’Silva & E.A. Ximenes (2011). Patterns of species richness and composition of fish assemblages in streams of the Ivinhema River basin, Upper Paraná River. Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia 23(2): 177–188.
Tamang, L., S. Chaudhry & D. Choudhury (2007). Ichthyofaunal Contribution to the state and comparison of habitat contiguity on taxonomic diversity in Senkhi stream, Arunachal Pradesh, India. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 104(2): 172−179.
Vannote, R.L., G.W. Minshall, K.W. Cummins, J.R. Seebell & C.E. Cushing (1980). The river continuum concept. Canadian Journal Fisheries Aquatic Sciences 37: 130–137.