Fish species diversity and their assemblages of Devi estuary in north east coast of India

Abstract

Devi River Estuary of Odisha is one of the tributaries of Mahanadi reverine system which is the third river in India. It supports diverse fisheries to local communities as well as serves as the nursery ground for culture of important valuable estuarine fish Mugil cephalus. Present study was carried out to assess the fish diversity status and their assemblages in relation to some hydrological parameters. Fish samples were collected together with some water quality parameters from three sampling stations of Devi river estuary from May 2017 to October 2017. Diversity of fishes were analyzed using SPSS (16.0) software. Findings showed that highest Shannon-einner diversity value for pooled data was 1.970, Margalef species richness is 2.6876, Evenness index of 2.854. The major contributory species were Mugil cephalus, Rastrelliger kangagurta, Alectis indica, Rhabdosargus sarba and Lutjjanus indicus, Eleutheronema tetradactylum and Alectis indica.