A study on species diversity of benthic macro invertebrates in freshwater lotic ecosystems in Gadchiroli district Maharashtra

A study was conducted to evaluate the potential of benthic macro-invertebrates community assemblages in predicting the water quality status. Three sampling stations with various environmental quality gradients were selected at the Wainganga, Gadhavi and Khobragadhi River in Gadchiroli district in order to determine differences or changes in the benthos community associated with variability in water quality. The diversity indices like Shannon-Wiener index, Evenness or Shannon equitability index and Margalef’s index were calculated. According to Shannon-Wiener index of species diversity, all the selected sampling sites fall under moderate pollution. The Shannon equitability index values showed a greater equitability in the apportionment of individuals among the species in all the sites while Margalef’s index of species richness reveals that the site-I had more healthy body and have higher species diversity among all sampling sites. The species diversity of site-II is greater than site-III. The site-III had poorer in species diversity and nutrient material. Species diversity, Shannon-Wiener index, Evenness index, Margalef’s index