There is much information on biodiversity of some rivers. In Banyumas, River Pelus is in the Serayu Catchments Areas in Central Java. Unfortunately, there was a degraded ecosystem and affected a decreasing of nekton in River Pelus. So far, no publication of benthos from this river is available, especially macrobenthos species richness and their longitudinal distribution. Therefore, this research is required for a river biodiversity management. The research purpose was to map species richness and longitudinal distribution of macrobenthos at River Pelus in Banyumas. Survey method was taken with stratified random sampling in eight stations and five replicates from May to July 2018. The results showed ten species of macrobenthos. All species belonged to class Malacostraca and Gastropoda. Malacostraca consisted of four species, whereas Gastropoda was six species. Of the four species collected in all replicates, one species, Macrobrachium oenone, could be categorized as an indicator species that only lived in Station II because there were a big stone substrate and good water quality. In the same class, M. empulipke, Parathelpusa bogoriensis, and P. convexa were in all stations, except station V because there were a sand substrate and bad water quality. In station V, there were only two species (Melanoides tuberculata and Pomacea canaliculata) could live. In general, there was a cosmopolitant species that could live in good and bad water quality such as Melanoides riquerti.

Moh. Husein Sastranegara

Anastasia Endang Pulungsari

Elly Tuti Winarni

Kusbiyanto

Febry Ramdani

Lisa Andriyani

Diah Nanda Utari