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Habitat preferences and biomonitoring of aquatic macroinvertebrates along the longitudinal gradient of Jhelum River, Kashmir Himalaya

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Abstract

Understanding the habitat preferences and requirements of the aquatic invertebrates is important for effective biomonitoring. We explored habitat preference and β -diversity of macroinvertebrates at 59 sampling sites from 18 watersheds of the Jhelum River Basin in Kashmir Himalaya. Macroinvertebrates were collected, sorted, identified, and enumerated from four habitat types (Run, Riffle, Glide, and Pool) from 59 sites during the 8 seasons from Summer 2017 to Spring 2019. Stream habitats differed significantly based on the number of taxa (species richness) and density (ind./m2) across the seasons. β -diversity assessment revealed that the Riffle, Glide, Run, and Pool differed in dispersion using the abundance/count data across the seasons with a more pronounced difference during autumn and winter seasons. Habitats displayed homogeneity among group dispersion (i.e., composition varies similarly) while having different compositions. Non-metric multidimensional scaling and multivariate dispersion showed greater similarity between Run–Pool and Riffle–Glide in terms of macroinvertebrate composition. Indicator species analysis based on relative abundance (%) revealed different habitat preferences of macroinvertebrate taxa. Simper analysis identified 18 taxa that contributed greatest to the dissimilarity between habitats for each season. Biomonitoring assessment categorized Jhelum River Basin into three water class categories: upstream reaches (60%) fall under Class A, midstream reaches (25%) belong to Class B, and downstream reaches fall under Class C and D (15%) categories, respectively. Our findings reinforce the relevance of macroinvertebrate communities as bioindicators for guiding the policy intervention for effective monitoring and appropriate management strategies of different watersheds in the Jhelum River Basin.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are highly thankful to the Head, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Kashmir, Srinagar for providing lab facilities. Authors also thankfully want to acknowledge the financial support of Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science and Technology (DST), India, under Extra Mural Research (EMR) Funding Scheme (Individual Centric) under Grant No.: EMR/2016/000324. We would like to extend our thanks to the anonymous reviewers for useful and critical comments on the manuscript.

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  1. Department of Environmental Science, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir, India

    I. Sabha, S. T. Islam, A. Hamid & S. U. Bhat

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  1. I. Sabha
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Contributions

IS conceived the research idea, designed methodology, sampling and formal analysis in the laboratory, validation of data, and contributed in writing and editing of original draft. STI conceived the research idea, designed methodology, formal analysis in the laboratory, validation of data, and contributed in writing and editing of original draft. AH carried out the formal analysis in the laboratory, validation of data, statistical analysis and contributed in writing and editing of original draft. SUB conceived the research idea and design, designed methodology, validation of data, supervision, funding acquisition, administration, and contributed in writing and editing/reviewing of original draft.

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Correspondence to S. U. Bhat.

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The research was done according to the ethical standards. All the authors approved the manuscript to be published. This research does not involve any human participants.

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Sabha, I., Islam, S.T., Hamid, A. et al. Habitat preferences and biomonitoring of aquatic macroinvertebrates along the longitudinal gradient of Jhelum River, Kashmir Himalaya. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 20, 10123–10140 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-022-04523-y

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