Use of aquatic insects to assess the biological status of a perennial pond in Assam, Northeast India

An investigation was carried out on “Hazara Pukhuri”, a perennial pond in Sonitpur district, North East India, between July 2019 and June 2020. To assess the health of the waterbody, various biotic and diversity indices were applied, with aquatic and semi-aquatic hemipteran populations functioning as bioindicators. The pond’s hemipterans include 17 spssecies from 13 genera and 8 families, including Gerridae, Corixidae, Pleidae, Notonectidae, Nepidae, Belostomatidae, Hydrometridae, and Mesoveliidae. The biotic indices Average Score per Taxon (ASPT), Stream Invertebrate Grade Number-Average Level (SIGNAL-2), and The Biological Monitoring Working Party (BMWP) Score, as well as other diversity indices, were assessed to indicate that the waterbody was unpolluted/slightly polluted. The presence or lack of littoral vegetation and flooding and drying of nearby shallow water pools and swampy areas were important drivers of the distribution, abundance, and community composition of aquatic and semi-aquatic hemipterans in the studied water body.