Diversity and Similarity of Algal Communities from Upland Rice Fish Environment: A Case Study

Abstract

Raising fish in rice environments though gaining popularity in many countries, information of periphyton and plankton communities which are the important primary producer of waterlogged rice field environment have hardly reported. Therefore, to generate base line information, a study on diversity and similarity over the cropping period of periphytic and planktonic communities from the waterlogged rice fields of Apatani Plateau, Arunachal Pradesh of north east India has been conducted during May–October of 2002. The periphyton content collected randomly from submerged rice stems showed differences in population structure in comparison to plankton. Throughout the cropping period, Shannon-Weiner diversity indices of periphyton were higher (3.1770 to 3.5321) than plankton (2.1531 to 2.9687). Shannon-Weiner equitability index ranges from 0.7893 to 0.8855 for periphytic communities and 0.6461 to 0.7711 for plankton communities.