How Water Shapes Fish Life: Bigaan River’s Impact on Freshwater Diversity | InformativeBD

Gina C Lacang, from the institute of Philippines. Alma N Abug, from the institute of Philippines and Horacio Emmanuel S Factura, from the institute of Philippines.  wrote a Research article about, How Water Shapes Fish Life: Bigaan River’s Impact on Freshwater Diversity. Entitled, Effects of physico-chemical characteristics of Bigaan River to the species richness and distribution of freshwater Ichthyofauna. This research paper published by the Journal of Biodiversity and Environmental Sciences | JBES. an open access scholarly research journal on Biosciences. under the affiliation of the International Network For Natural Sciences| INNSpub. an open access multidisciplinary research journal publisher.

Abstract

This study was conducted to assess the physicochemical characteristics of Bigaan River and determine species richness and distribution of Ichthyofauna. Water samples were collected from three sampling sites of Brgy. Gango, Brgy. Indahag and Brgy. Cugman using grab sampling method during the wet season to determine water quality parameters namely: Total Solids, Total Suspended Solids (TSS), Turbidity, Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), Conductivity, Density, Redox Potential (ORP), pH, Salinity, Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Nitrates, Potassium, Phosphate, and Mercury while other parameters were measured onsite namely: Temperature, Dissolved Oxygen (DO), and Flowrate. The collection of fish species was done using purposive sampling. The findings of the study revealed that all physicochemical parameters have not exceeded the given standard values of DAO 2016-08. Results also showed significant differences in the parameters: total dissolved solids and turbidity. There were five identified Ichthyofauna species present in Bigaan River and it showed low diversity. Puntius binotatus is the most abundant species and Oreochromis niloticus is the least number of Ichthyofauna species. The Ichthyofauna species richness and distribution identified in Bigaan River have different tolerance on water quality. Some species were tolerant and sensitive to the water quality fluctuations and they were absent in a particular area. Although Bigaan River is within the acceptable level for Class C waters according to DAO-2016-08; however, water quality in Bigaan River limits the condition of Ichthyofauna species survival and growth because it was disrupted by sudden changes in the water quality.

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Introduction

Prominent anthropogenic activity that influences the water quality is mining. Mining involves exploration and removing of minerals from the earth, this process of removing precious metals from the ore use some heavy metals like mercury in amalgamation process which resulted in contamination of riverine system. Mercury contamination on freshwater from mining may cause by tailing ponds that overflow and runoff’ into the surface of water. Mercury is persistent, bioaccumulative and it is known to bio-magnify through aquatic food chains causing deleterious environmental effects (Powell, 2009). When mercury gets into water, bacterial activity can change into a form of methyl mercury which can be absorbed by aquatic organisms. It may affect the distribution and richness of species on freshwater organisms, like fishes and macroinvertebrates. Fish are the most diverse group of vertebrates with more than 30,000 species worldwide (Desidera et al., 2019). It can be found in every underwater habitat such as marine and freshwater. Freshwater fishes are the most threatened group of vertebrates based on more than 5,000 species assessed by the IUCN (Reid et al., 2013). In other words, water quality of a river may affect the growth, survival, and biodiversity of fish on the water.

Bigaan River is one of the seven rivers traversing across the city of Cagayan de Oro (Canencia & Gomez, 2016). Many people depend on Bigaan River because they use it for washing their clothes, bathing and even for their daily food consumption such as fish. The river is now surrounded by communities with high populations (Walag & Canencia, 2016). Population growth can increase the deterioration rate of the Bigaan River on its excessive use and dumping of the waste directly or indirectly into the river. Unfortunately, jeopardizing the water quality can affect living aquatic organisms such as fish. Freshwater fish in the Bigaan River are edible. Many of the local people use them for daily consumptions. In the light of these scenarios, the researchers assessed the physicochemical characteristics of the Bigaan River and the species richness and distribution of freshwater fish. Previous researches conducted were about the accumulation of mercury on fishes but there was no study related to the diversity of fishes, specifically on its species richness and distribution affected by water quality in the Bigaan River. The main objective of this study is to assess the physicochemical characteristics of the Bigaan River during wet season and determine the effects of the water quality on the species richness and distribution of freshwater fish. Specifically, it: i.) determines the physicochemical characteristics of Bigaan River; ii.) compares the measured water quality parameters with DENR (DAO-2016-08) standards; iii.) assess if there is a significant difference in the measured values of water parameters between sampling periods and among sampling sites, and iv.) determines the Ichthyofauna species richness and distribution of the river.

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Article source : Effects of physico-chemical characteristics of Bigaan River to the species richness and distribution of freshwater Ichthyofauna