Zooplankton Diversity of a Sub-Tropical Small Urban Wetland of Meghalaya, Northeast India with Remarks on Spatial Variations

Abstract

Limnological survey of a small urban wetland of Meghalaya state of northeast India (NEI), undertaken at the littoral and semi-limnetic stations, reveals one of the biodiverse zooplankton assemblages (148 species belonging to 72 genera and 30 families) known from any lentic environ of the Indian sub-region. The speciose nature, peak constellation/sample of 83 zooplankton species, and diverse Rotifera (90 species) are hypothesized to environmental heterogeneity of this urban wetland in contrast to the general pattern of reduced richness expected in highly modified urban aquatic environments. The soft and de-mineralized waters are characterized by low zooplankton abundance. This study records high species diversity and evenness, and low dominance attributed to low and equitable abundance depicts 'generalist' nature of all species. Rotifera > Cladocera and Chydoridae > Lecanidae > Lepadellidae > Daphniidae are important at both stations, and Testudinellidae, Trichocercidae, and Macrothricidae are notable at the littoral station. Individual abiotic factors exert limited and differential spatial influence on various taxa, while the CCA registers a high cumulative influence of 10 abiotic factors on the littoral (87.37%) and semi-limnetic (75.81%) zooplankton assemblages. The spatial variations of composition, richness, similarities, abundance, diversity indices, and of the influence of individual abiotic factors are hypothesized to habitat heterogeneity amongst the sampled stations.

The biodiverse rotifers (Rotifera: Eurotatoria) of Majuli River Island – an alluvial floodplain of Assam state (northeast India) and the largest river island

“…The notable paucity of Brachionus (9 species) is attributed to a lack of limnetic conditions in the Majuli wetlands. This feature is in accordance with reports from upper Assam and Meghalaya (Sharma and Sharma, 2021c) wetlands, but marks a distinct contrast to the higher richness of Brachionus reported from south Assam (Sharma and Sharma, 2019b), and lower and central Assam (Sharma and Sharma, 2019c) floodplains.…”

Phytoplankton Diversity of a Demineralized Urban Wetland of Meghalaya State of Northeast India: The Spatio-temporal Variations and the Role of Abiotic Factors

“…pH, Cond, TA and TH register significant spatial and temporal variations; DO indicates significant spatial variations; and WT, Ca, Mg, Cl, DOM, SO 4 , PO 4 , NO 3 and SiO 2 register significant temporal variations. In general, the variations of the recorded abiotic factors broadly concur with the reports from NEI [12,38,39] and Bhutan [40] .…”

“…Phytoplankton, a dominant component of net plankton, significantly contributes to density variations of the latter; the quantitative predominance of phytoplankton corresponds with the Indian reports from Himachal Pradesh [19] , Meghalaya [11,12,38] and Mizoram [9] , and the report from Bhutan [40] . ANOVA affirms significant spatio-temporal phytoplankton density variations during our study.…”

“…The subtropical NEHU wetland depicts the "soft, calcium poor, slightly acidic-circumneutral waters" and low nutrients, while the 'demineralized nature' of this rainwater-fed wetland is attributed to the influx of lower ionic concentration waters from the leached soil and weathered rocks [38,39] . pH, Cond, TA and TH register significant spatial and temporal variations; DO indicates significant spatial variations; and WT, Ca, Mg, Cl, DOM, SO 4 , PO 4 , NO 3 and SiO 2 register significant temporal variations.…”

Taxonomy and distribution of desmids in Karapuzha Dam, Western Ghats, Kerala

“…Distribution in India: Bengal and North India (Turner, 1892); Maharashtra (Kamat, 1975a, Bhosale et al, 2010, Shahare & Cherian, 2012); Gujarat (Asoka Kumar & Patel, 1988); Meghalaya (Sharma, 1995); Kerala (Sheeba & Ramanujan, 2005, Nasser & Sureshkumar, 2014b, Paul & Sreekumar, 2015, Ray et al, 2021); Tamil Nadu (Perumal & Anand, 2008, Palanivel & Uma Rani, 2016); Jharkhand (Kumar & Sahu, 2012); Karnataka (Ramachandra et al, 2012); Orissa &West Bengal (Bhakta & Adhikary, 2012); Rajasthan (Goyal, 2018); West Bengal (Nandi et al, 2019).…”