Bio-ecological study of river estuaries in Guilan province

The Caspian Sea with brackish water is known as typical environment due to geo position, precious biota and the largest land-enclosed drainage area in the world. Macrobenthos were performed the main group of the Caspian Sea fauna. While they use as environmental bio-assessment, they have not completely studied in the Caspian Sea especially in estuaries environments. In this survey were studied eighteen river estuaries in Guilan province off Caspian sea southwest including Asrara, Chelevand, Lemir, Havigh, Shirabad, Khotbesara, Lisar, Karganroud, Navroud, Nokandekeh, Sefidrud, Heshmatrud, Langerud, Polerud and Chabokrud. The macro-invertebrate sampling was conducted seasonally at eight stations during autumn 2008 to autumn 2009. The macrobenthos organisms were identified as possible level in genus or species. The Shannon Wiener diversity and the Hilsenhoff biotic indices were used for evaluation of environmental quality. In this study, 69 genus identified that belong to 36 families and 16 orders. The most presentation of genus belongs to Chironomidae family with twenty six genus while others families were included forty three genus. The most average of macro-invertebrate abundance belong to order of Diptera with 35 %, subsequently the abundance of Amphipoda and Bivalvia orders occupied the second rank with 8.2 %. Orders Polychaeta, Oligochaeta and Cumacea had a low abundance during the study, however the Polychaeta showed a high abundance in some seasons and stations (up to 25%). The Plecoptera was rarely observed in some stations with high abundance. The Stenogammarus genus had the normally distribution during study, while Chironomidae genera as Eukifferiella and Cricotopus were measured in the high abundance during autumn 2008 to spring 2009. While Streblospio and Limnodrilus had the high presentation during winter and spring 2009, Cerastoderma sp. showed a high percentage in spring and summer 2009. The result of Shannon Wiener index values showed a significantly difference among regions for most seasons. There was also observed significantly difference for diversity values among stations in different seasons. According to Hilsenhoff biotic index for water quality classification; the most stations had good quality in spring 2009, while they were slightly and moderately good condition in winter 2009. The water quality of the Caspian Sea stations was in good condition as compared with the rivers estuary stations.

Iranian Fisheries Science Research Institute

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