Diversity of some aquatic and aerial odonatous dwellers of the River Nile in Upper Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, South Valley University

Abstract

The present work is aimed to study diversity of odonatous adults and naiads species encountered in the River Nile current throughout Upper Egypt. This study has been curried out in five stations for two sequence years. The odonatous diversity was investigated by monitoring numerical, locality abundance, and periodical abundance diversity.
The numerical diversity showed eight odonatous species. Moreover, the adults (54.75% of the total catches) dominated the naiads (45.25%) as well as Lestidae and Lestes viridis on the levels of the families and species.
Regarding locality diversity, the highest abundance of adults and nymphs were recorded in two different sites (El-Mashtal and BananaIsland stations, respectively). Conversely, the lowest populations were recorded in Menshaa station.
On the other hand, the periodical abundance diversity indicated to importance of the two seasons, winter and summer during which the highest seasonal abundance for the naiads and the adults, respectively, in the most studied stations. In contrast, the minimum abundances of the naiads and adults were recorded during spring and winter, respectively. Thus, it could be seen seasonal abundant interference for both nymphs and adults, particularly, during spring. This result may be due to the long ages of the nymphs.         
The variation of the seasonal abundance exceptive stations may not affect on the importance of winter and spring as the periods of the highest and lowest seasonal abundances because perhaps these stations, especially stations Ma, underwent some of the human activities of the commercial ports.

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