Biodiversity, distributions and isolation of microplastics pollution in finfish species in the Panjkora River at Lower and Upper Dir districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan

Abstract

The basic aim of this study was aimed to determine the ichthyofaunal diversity of River Panjkora in both upper and lower Dir districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.Fish samples were collected by using fishnets from March to September 2020. A total of 724 specimens were collected and classified into 5 families, 14 genera, and 18 species. The overall results revealed that most fish fauna of river Panjkora contains 8 species of family Cyprinidae (56.49%) followed by 4 species of Nemacheilidae (24.44%), 2 species of Channidae (10.63%), and Sisoridae (7.04%), and 1 species of Mastacembelidae (1.38%), respectively. Among all kinds of fish species, Schizothorax plagiostomus (16.57%) was highly dominated and followed by Carassius auratus (11.87%) and Racoma labiata (9.66%) and were reported as highly abundant, especially during April, May, and June. The least abundant species were Glyptothorax punjabensis, Glyptothorax sufii, and Mastacembelus armatus, that constituting 2.48%, 2.20%, and 1.38% of the total fish samples. The Overall Simpson’s diversity (1-D= 0.919) and Simpson’s Reciprocal index values (1/D= 12.3876), and Shannon’s index (H= 2.68) were indicating that river Panjkora contains a quite rich and diverse group of fish species. The highest microplastics observed in site 7 compared to other study area. Conservation steps should be taken as a top priority to protect and conserve the marine environment and natural heritage from further loss, extinction and stop or minimize losses incurred through irresponsible fishery practices

First Record of Ichthyofauna from Gomal Zam Dam, District South Waziristan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

“…Studies examined the biodiversity of fish species in various water bodies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, including River Kurram at Bannu [ 10 – 12 ] and Baran dam of district Bannu [ 13 ]. Khan et al [ 14 ] recently determined the fish biodiversity of River Panjkora in both upper and lower Dir districts [ 14 ]. Ali et al [ 15 ] studied the diversity of freshwater fishes from different locations of district Malakand including the Meherdi stream, Kharki stream, Wartier stream, Mahajar camp stream, and Dargai streams.…”

Far from urban areas: plastic uptake in fish populations of subtropical headwater streams

“…But fibers can be considered as surrogates for plastic contamination. Many publications show, that fibers are the most abundant shape of plastic particles in freshwater (Ferraz et al, 2020;Hendrickson et al, 2018) sediment of rivers and (Ballent et al, 2016;Ehlers et al, 2019;Qin et al, 2020) and fish (Calderon et al, 2019;Silva-Cavalcanti et al, 2017;Khan et al, 2024).…”

Effects of replacement of dietary fish oil with plant oil on growth performance and fatty acid composition of spinefoot rabbitfish, Siganus rivulatus

“…Fish is the cheapest source of high-quality protein fatty acids and antioxidants that can protect our body against certain diseases (Khalid et al, 2021). Fish has been an important dietary source of protein and other nutrient throughout human history (Ahmad et al, 2021;Khan et al, 2024;Hassan et al, 2024). Aquaculture is one…”