Abstract
The community ecology of freshwater fishes in four river systems (Sharavati, Aghanashini, Bedti and Kali) of the central Western Ghats (India) has been studied for the first time. Patterns of fish species distributions were analysed and important stream and environmental parameters determining the species richness and composition of this region were identified. Upstream--downstream trends in species richness and diversity as well as changes in stream characteristics were studied using univariate correlation analyses. Preliminary analyses on changes in species composition and feeding guilds showed the presence of a gradual species turnover along the stream gradient. There were associated changes in the major feeding guild compositions, with a higher proportion of insectivore and algivore/herbivore composition in the upper reaches shifting to a predominance of omnivores and carnivores downstream. Pearson’s product--moment correlation analyses along with stepwise multiple regression analyses identified stream depth and altitude as the important parameters determining species richness. Canonical correspondence analysis was performed to study species associations with environmental parameters. The analysis showed a strong species environmental correlation to the CCA axes, a high significance for the CCA axis 1 as well as for the overall test. The plots of the species and site scores on the CCA axes showed a clear segregation of species based on their relations with environmental and stream properties. This study is an important step in our understanding of the community structure of fish species of these rivers and would be helpful in future efforts on the conservation of aquatic communities and their habitats.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
P. L. Angermeier J. R. Karr (1983) ArticleTitleFish communities along environmental gradients in a system of tropical streams Environmental Biology of Fishes 9 IssueID2 117–135
M. Arunachalam (2000) ArticleTitleAssemblage structure of stream fishes in the Western Ghats (India) Hydrobiologia 430 1–31
J. Belliard P. Boet E. Tales (1997) ArticleTitleRegional and longitudinal patterns of fish community in the Seine River basin, France Environmental Biology of Fishes 50 133–147
A.C. Benke T.C. Van Ardsall Jr. D.M. Gillespie F.K. Parish (1984) ArticleTitleInvertebrate productivity in a subtropical blackwater river: the importance of habitat and life history Ecological Monographs 54 25–63
Bhat A. ( 2002) A study of the diversity and ecology of freshwater fishes of four river systems of the Uttara Kannada District, Karnataka, India Ph.D. Dissertation Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. p. 178
A. Bhat (2003) ArticleTitleDiversity and composition of freshwater fishes in streams of Central Western Ghats, India Environmental Biology of Fishes 68 25–38
R. K. Colwell J. A. Coddington (1994) Estimating terrestrial␣biodiversity through extrapolation Philosophical␣Transactions of the Royal Society, London 101–118
N. Dahanukar R. Raut A. Bhat (2004) ArticleTitleDistribution, endemism and threat status of freshwater fishes in the Western Ghats of India Journal of Biogeography 31 123–136
K. D. Fausch J. R. Karr P. R. Yant (1984) ArticleTitleRegional application of an index of biotic integrity based on stream fish communities Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 113 39–55
O. T. Gorman J. R. Karr (1978) ArticleTitleHabitat structure and stream fish communities Ecology 59 507–515
G. D. Grossman (1982) ArticleTitleDynamics and organisation of a rocky intertidal fish assemblage: the persistence and resilience of taxocene structure American Naturalist 119 611–637
R. J. Horwitz (1978) ArticleTitleTemporal variability patterns and the distributional patterns of stream fishes Ecological Monographs 48 307–321
B. Hugueny (1989) ArticleTitleWest African Rivers as biogeographic islands Oecologia 79 235–243
K. C. Jayaram (1999) The Freshwater Fishes of the Indian Region Narendra Publishing House Delhi‐
A. Kamdem Toham G. G. Tuegels (1997) ArticleTitlePatterns of microhabitat use among fourteen abundant fish of the lower Ntem River basin (Cameroon) Aquatic Living Resources 10 289–298
A. Kamdem Toham G. G. Tuegels (1998) ArticleTitleDiversity patterns of fish assemblages in the Lower Ntem River Basin (Cameroon), with notes on potential effects of deforestation Archives of Hydrobiology 141 IssueID4 421–446
J. R. Karr (1981) ArticleTitleAssessment of Biotic Integrity using fish communities Fisheries 6 IssueID6 21–27
R. H., 1975. Fish Communities in Tropical Freshwaters: Their Distribution, Ecology and Evolution, Longman, London,England.
Ludwig,J. A. & J. F. Reynolds, 1988. Statistical Ecology: A Primer on Methods and Computing, John Wiley and Sons, USA.
R. H. Mac Arthur (1964) ArticleTitleEnvironmental factors affecting bird species diversity American Naturalist 98 387–397
P. B. Moyle B. Vondracek (1985) ArticleTitlePersistence and structure of the fish assemblage in a small Californian stream Ecology 66 1–13
N. Myers R. A. Mittermeier C. G. Mittermeier G. A. B. da Fonesca J. Kent (2000) ArticleTitleBiodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities Nature 403 853–858
T. Oberdorff J. F. Guegan B. Hugueny (1995) ArticleTitleGlobal patterns of fish species richness in rivers Ecography 18 345–352
E. R. Pianka (1967) ArticleTitleOn lizard species diversity: North American flatland deserts Ecology 48 333–351
F. J. Rahel W. A. Hubert (1991) ArticleTitleFish assemblages and habitat gradients in a Rocky Mountain-great plains stream: biotic zonation and additive patterns of community change Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 120 319–332
F. G. Reyes-Gavlan R. Garrido A. G. Nicieza M. M. Toledo F. Brana (1996) ArticleTitleFish community variation along physical gradient in short streams of northern Spain and the disruptive␣effect of dams Environmental Biology of Fishes 321 155–163
S. T. Ross W. J. Matthews A. A. Echelle (1985) ArticleTitlePersistence of stream fish assemblages: effects of environmental change American Naturalist 126 24–40
M. L. Rosenzweig J. Winakur (1969) ArticleTitlePopulation ecology of desert rodent communities: habitat and environmental complexity Ecology 50 558–572
I. J. Schlosser (1982) ArticleTitleFish community structure and function along two habitat gradients in a headwater stream Ecological Monographs 52 395–414
K. G. Sivaramakrishnan K. Venkataraman S. Sridhar S. Marimuthu (1995) ArticleTitleSpatial distribution of benthic macroinvertebrate distributions along river Kaveri and its tributaries (India) International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Science 21 141–161
P. K. Talwar A. Jhingran (1991) Inland fishes of India and adjacent countries, Oxford and IBH Publishing Co Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi,
C. J. F. Ter Braak (1985) ArticleTitleCorrespondence analyses of incidence and abundance data: properties in terms of a unimodal response model Biometrics 41 859–873
C. J. F. Ter Braak (1986) ArticleTitleCanonical correspondence analyses: A new eigenvector method for multivariate direct gradient analysis Ecology 67 1167–1179
Ter Braak, C. J. F. (1988) CANOCO – A Fortran program for canonical community ordination by (partial) (detrended) (canonical) correspondence analysis, principal component analysis and redundancy analysis (version 2.1) Technical Report No. LWA- 88-02.TNCO, Institute of Applied Computer Science, Statistical Department Wageningen, 6700 AC Wageningen, The Netherlands. 95 pp
R. L. Vannote G. W. Minshall J. R. Sedell C. E. Cushing (1980) ArticleTitleThe river continuum concept Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 37 130–137
K. K. Wright J. L. Li (2002) ArticleTitleFrom continua to patches: examining stream community structure over large environmental gradients Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 59 1404–1417
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bhat, A. Patterns in the distribution of freshwater fishes in rivers of Central Western Ghats, India and their associations with environmental gradients. Hydrobiologia 529, 83–97 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-004-4949-1
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-004-4949-1