Author(s): Oscar Wembo Ndeo, Victor Kangela and Fred Chibwana

Abstract: Tropical wetlands are not only among the most vital ecosystems in the world, containing unique aquatic and terrestrial communities with high biodiversity but also severely under threat due to anthropogenic activities. Kisangani is one of those places that need inversion. This study aimed at assessing macrobenthic biodiversity occurring in the Kisangani swamps to represent Afrotropical wetlands to facilitate conservation of the freshwater invertebrates. Benthic macroinvertebrates were collected from Camp Bauma, Konga-Konga, Dechaux and Scolasticat swamps in Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). A total of 47 families of macroinvertebrates were found, comprising of twelve Coleoptera, eight Diptera, seven Heteroptera, six Trichoptera, five Odonata, two Decapoda, two Gastropoda one Ephemeroptera, one Plecoptera, one Dictyoptera, one Haplotaxina, and one Lumbriculida. Coleoptera was the most dominant group with 24.95 % of all individuals collected, followed by Odonata and Gastropoda with 18.36 % and 13.9 %, respectively. The family richness across the localities was not significantly different (χ2 = 0.0742, p = 785379). These findings augment previous research on wetlands that despite their usefulness, wetland ecosystems are under serious degradation threat, and therefore sustainable environmental management plans are needed to countereffect the rapidly growing cities like Kisangani.

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