Identification and Quantification of Aquatic Macrophytes with Ecological Indices in the Damodar River

A study was conducted to analyze the aquatic macrophytes with the help of ecological indices along the stretch of the Damodar river from Dishergarh to Barsul, Burdwan West Bengal, India. Twenty five aquatic macrophytes were collected from sixteen sampling sites of the river Damodar to determine their density, frequency, abundance, diversity (Shannon diversity), evenness, species richness (Margalef species richness). The objective of the study was (i) to identify the macrophytes present in the 16 different sites in the river Damodar and (ii) to quantify the aquatic macrophytes with the help of some ecological indices. The aquatic plants were identified up to species level. The average of diversity index, species richness and eveness of aquatic macrophytes in the Damodar river were 0.75, 20.0 and 0.25 respectively. Physicochemical parameters showed an average of pH (7.76), alkalinity (210.45 mg/l), conductivity (310 µS/cm), nitrate (NO3−) (1.62 mg/l) and phosphate (PO43−) (0.15 mg/l) in the sixteen sampling sites. Shannon diversity index showed minimum number of representative species under 14 families. Species richness index was moderate to high representing the enriched participation of habitat species. The study revealed that the most abundant species was Vallisneria spirdis may be due to its invasive nature and rate of dispersal.