Investigation of environmental factors affecting the abundance and biodiversity of fish communities in Dinor River, Kermanshah province

Abstract

The aim of this study was to identify environmental factors affecting the abundance and biodiversity of fish communities in the Dinor River in Kermanshah province. For this purpose, six stations were selected for sampling fish along the Dinor River in June 2018. In addition, physicochemical parameters and biodiversity indices of fish were determined. Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) was used to determine the environmental factors affecting biodiversity indices and fish species. Based on the results, a total of 2543 fish samples were caught from in Dinor River, which belonged to 20 species. Most fish species belonged to the Cyprinidae family. Alburnus sellal (with 1358 samples) and Capoeta trutta (with 1 sample) showed the highest and lowest abundance in Dinor River, respectively. Medium bedrock diameter with a coefficient of 0.65, water flow velocity with a coefficient of 0.60 and TDS with a coefficient of 0.52 were identified as the most effective environmental variables on fish abundance in the Dinor River. In addition, among the studied environmental variables, river width with a coefficient of 0.64, depth with a coefficient of 0.58, EC with a coefficient of 0.44 and TDS with a coefficient of 0.42 showed the most significant contribution to fish species diversity in the Dinor River.

Keywords

• environmental variables
• diversity
• shannon–wiener index
• habitat