The First Biodiversity and Conservation Assessment of Bamui Beel in Bangladesh: Current Status and Threats

Abstract

A year-long research was conducted with a novel purpose for categorizing and documents the existing fish diversity and abundance of Bamui beel in Jamalpur district located in Northeast Bangladesh, within a time frame from July 2022 to June 2023. A total of 46 fish species were identified that belong to 18 taxonomical families and 8 orders. The most abundant family was Cyprinidae (25%). Among 46 species, 37% were commonly available (CA) and 11% were abundantly available (AA) in terms of biodiversity status. According to the global conservational status, around 74% were reported as least concerned (LC) whereas 4% were nearly threatened (NT). On the other hand, in consonance with the conservational status of Bangladesh 52% were least concerned (LC) and 11% were endangered (EN). Pielou’s evenness score in Bamui beel was highest (0.247) during pre-monsoon and lowest (0.213) in monsoon. Shannon-Weaver diversity index ranged between 1.992 to 2.114. whereas Simpson’s dominance index value was a maximum of 0.883 in pre-monsoon and a minimum of 0.852 in monsoon. The yearly fish production of the beel was 7.023 metric tons during that year. Besides this, small indigenous species (SIS) of fish dominated with 63.34% of the beel's species makeup.