Ecological Insight of Riparian Mammalian Diversity and Distribution along River Jhelum, Punjab, Pakistan

Pakistan, with its unique geographical location, is home to rich mammalian diversity. However, many areas of the country remain unexplored, so this study was designed to assess the diversity and density of mammalian species along the River Jhelum. A linear count survey was conducted, utilizing direct methods (i.e., vocalizations and physical counts) and indirect methods (i.e., burrows, fecal pellets, marks on trees, footprints or pug marks, and group questionnaires/interviews) to assess mammalian diversity. A total of 22 mammalian species, belonging to 18 genera, 13 families, and 8 orders, were documented from the selected study area (Table 1). The Shannon-Wiener diversity index (H’) for mammalian species of BJ, RF, and RB was 1.98, 1.91, and 1.89, respectively; the Simpson Index (S) for BJ, RF, and RB was 0.8105, 0.7928, and 0.7873. The first two components of the PCA explained 98.4% of the variation in the samples (Component 1: 98.4%; Component 2: 0.95%) from Jhelum. Each principal component is not correlated with the other principal components recorded from Jhelum.