Behrouz Behrouzi-Rad¹ , Ardeshir Behrouzi-Rad²

1. Deprtment of the Environment, College of Agricultural and Natural Resource, Islamic Azad University, Ahvaz Branch, Ahvaz, Iran
2. Ardeshir Behrouzi-Rad, Dep. of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Shahed University, Tehran, Iran
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Marine Science, 2014, Vol. 4, No. 54   doi: 10.5376/ijms.2014.04.0054
Received: 23 Jul., 2014    Accepted: 26 Aug., 2014    Published: 30 Sep., 2014

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Behrouz and Ardeshir, 2014, Waterbirds Population, Species Diversity and Similarity Fluctuation in Relation to Water Pollution in Miangaran Wetland in South of Iran, International Journal of Marine Science, Vol.4, No.54 1-5 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2014.04.0054)

The Miangaran (also called Izeh) marsh located in vicinity (1.5 Km) of Izeh city at Khouzestan province in south of Iran. The wastewater (domestic sewage, urban-ran-off and industrial) of the Izeh city discharge into the south part of the Izeh marsh. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of water quality by comparing the relative number and species richness and diversity of marsh birds in south and north part of marsh, and to determine what landscape variables could be used to predict the relative number and species richness of marsh birds. Determination of species diversity, richness, evenness, similarity, and number of waterbirds in south part (more polluted part) and north part, as a (low-polluted part) of marsh were carried out from July to September 2011.Eighteen species of migratory waterbirds were present in both south (more Polluted) and north (low-polluted) parts of marsh, but total number of waterbirds in north part (4707 individuals) was twice more than south part (2110 individuals) in summer 2011. Maximum similarity between bird communities in south and north part of marsh was 64.57% (0.77 Morista’s index) in September 2011 and Minimum similarity was 13.44% (0.07 Maritsa’s index) in August 2011. Species diversity and richness of north part were more than south part of marsh, and were in range (10, 9, 11) and (14, 15, 15) species in July, August and September respectively. The study revealed that averages of COD, biological oxygen demand, salinity, SO4 and temperature were in range (9.66-102 mg/L), (50-55 mg/L), (0.96-1.6), (0.61-0.78mg/L), (20-21.6 siliceous) in north and south part of marsh in July, August, and September respectively. The pH, EC, Turbidity, DO, BOD, COD, SO4, NO3, salinity and temperature of water in south part were a little more than north part of marsh, but DO was inverse of other chemical parameters, and in north part was more than south part and were in range (4.66 - 2.90mg/L). A little difference between averages of physicochemical parameters of water in two parts of marsh has been cased significantly in number, species diversity, and richness of waterbirds in summer 2011.

Pollution; Waterbirds; Population; Species Diversity; Similarity; Miangaran marsh