Fish assemblage pattern, seasonality and their interaction with environmental variables: insights from canals of Sundarbans, India

Effect of environmental drivers of fish assemblage and diversity patterns in temporal scale in Mongra Reservoir: A case study from one of the tributaries of Mahanadi Basin, Central India

“…Higher levels of alkalinity during monsoon seasons may be caused by insufficient rainfall and late monsoon, while lower values in post‐monsoon period in both parameters are ascribed to dilution by rainwater. The present findings were consistent with those made by Gogoi et al (2022), who noticed that Bishalakhi Canal had low total alkalinity readings of 93.7 mg/L and Bhetkimari Canal had readings of 110.4 mg/L during the post‐monsoon season. In addition, Koushlesh et al (2022) found that the total alkalinity (96 mg/L) and total hardness (128 mg/L) levels of the Sardar Sarovar reservoir (portion inside the territory of Madhya Pradesh) were lower in the post‐monsoon and higher in the monsoon (127 mg/l and 134.45 mg/L) season.…”

“…Stable and balanced ecosystems have a rich species assemblage, as shown by the high positive connection between Shannon diversity (H′) and Margalef species richness (r = 0.996). Similar observations were documented by Mukherjee et al (2013) in Matlah River system, Raveendar et al (2018) in Nanaksagar reservoir, Johnson et al (2021) in Halali Reservoir, Gogoi et al (2022) in canals of Sunderban and Koushlesh et al (2022) in Sardar Sarovar Reservoir.…”

“…According to Negi and Mamgain (2013), the water and air temperatures have a significant impact on the fish aggregation and dispersal pattern, which was showing to be the greatest predictor of total abundance (Pombo et al, 2005). Environmental parameters such as DO, pH, nitrate and phosphate have an impact on fish distributions and assemblage composition in Halali reservoir and Bishalakhi Canal and the Bhetkimari Canal (Gogoi et al, 2022; Johnson et al, 2021), respectively.…”