Species diversity of freshwater fish in the agriculture conservation areas of Eastern Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

This paper analyzes the diversity of freshwater fish in the agricultural conservation areas of Eastern Bangkok, Thailand, resulting from a study carried out in the period from January to December 2020. The fish samples were collected every 4 months, covering the hot-dry (April), rainy (August) and cool-dry (December) seasons at eight sampling stations. Fishes were caught using cast nets with a mesh size of 1.5 cm and 2.5 cm, and gill nets with a mesh size of ¾ inch, 1.5 inch and 2 inch. All data was analyzed to find out the fish diversity indices. Multivariate method of cluster analysis was used for data analysis. The result indicated that there was a total of 1,415 individual fish representing 29 species belonging to 23 genera and 14 families. The four most dominant fishes varieties in the agricultural conservation areas in terms of amount were Trichogaster microlepis, Trichopodus trichopterus, Pterygoplichthys disjunctivus and Oreochromis niloticus which were distributed at all research stations. These are fish that accessory air-breathing organs tolerate poor quality environments. Species diversity index (H) of fish was in the range of 1.323 to 2.423, evenness index (E) 0.489 to 0.895 and species richness index (d) from 1.135 to 3.919. The cluster analysis of Bray-Curtis similarity index can divide the fish community into 3 clusters, amongst which there were a similarity percentage ranging between 55.42% and 100%.