Fish diversity and habitat relationship with environmental variables at Meghna river estuary, Bangladesh

Abstract

Meghna river estuary is the largest estuarine ecosystem of Bangladesh and support diverse fisheries communities compared to others. Present study was carried out to assess the fish diversity status with relation to major hydrological and meteorological parameters in both spatio-temporal scales. Fish samples were collected together with water quality parameters from eight sampling stations of the Meghna river estuary from November 2011 to April 2012. Fifty years meteorological data were collected from meteorological department. Diversity status were analyzed from all fisheries data by using PAST (version 2.15) software. Findings showed that Meghna river estuary is the habitat of 53 fish species and Oxyurichthys microlepis, Hemiarius sona Arius thalassinus, Batrachocephalus mino and Arius caelatus are the major contributory species (>6%) for both spatio-temporal scales. Water temperature and rainfall was found as major influential factors for species distribution.