Dr. Atta Mouludi-Saleh, Dr. Soheil Eagderi, Dr. Hadi Poorbagher, Dr. Hamid Reza Esmaeili,
Volume 11, Issue 1 (6-2024)
Abstract
This study was conducted to investigate the ecological niche overlap of two sympatric species, Paracapoeta trutta and Capoeta damascina in the Iranian part of the Sirvan River, Persian Gulf basin. For this purpose, during the winter of 2021, sampling was done from eight stations (each with three repetitions). After identification, samples were released into the same sampling sites. Then some 10 environmental factors including depth, water velocity, river width, pH, temperature, electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), Altitude, slope, and dissolved oxygen were measured and recorded. Investigating the habitat suitability indices of P. trutta were recorded as pH 7.5-8, temperature about 10°C, TDS 150mg/liter, EC 400μS/cm, altitude 1150 m, depth 15cm, river width about 9m, velocity 1 m/s, slope 2% and dissolved oxygen 9mg/l and for C. damascina as pH 6-6.5, temperature about 10°C, TDS 180 to 200mg/l, EC 300μS/cm, altitude 1150m, depth 25cm, river width about 6m, velocity 0.5 m/s, the slope is 2% and the dissolved oxygen 8mg. The results of the ecological niche overlap showed that two species based on studied environmental factors had the highest overlap value for dissolved oxygen (0.646) and the value for temperature (0.293). The average ecological niche overlap was 0.432 for the two species.
