Abstract
Mayflies are recognized as potential bioindicators of good water quality and they are not widely been studied in Indian subcontinent. So the current paper aims to describe the distribution and trophic categorization of mayflies in connection with stream order, mesohabitats and landscape elements. The study was carried out in 30 streams of Palni and Cardamom hills of Southern India from 2017–2018. A total of 10,075 individuals of mayflies were collected from 30 sites. The species richness among the six landscape elements (evergreen, semi evergreen, forestry plantation, areca nut, scrub and habitation) were examined and the outcomes show that streams moving through evergreen territories have more richness (25.6%) followed by semievergreen regions (23.2%) and no mayflies are acquired from pool. PCA results showed that among the mesohabitats; run, riffle and bank underpins the mayfly taxa. Functional Feeding Group (FFG) results shows 27 sites were overwhelmed by scrapers, 2 sites were dominated by collectors and in one site collectors and scrapers were equivalent. Ternary plot reveals scrapers were found to be predominant in all the stream orders. The present study also revealed that in Palni and Cardamom hills, larger numbers of species of Ephemeroptera were sampled from stream orders II and III contrast with stream orders I and IV.
Key words: Ephemeroptera, RCC, scrapers, arecanut, FFG
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