Current World Environment

Introduction

The knowledge of plankton, available in an ecosystem, is of fundamental importance. Phytoplankton are the chlorophyll bearing suspended microscopic organisms consisting of algae with representatives from all major taxonomic phyla; majority of the members belong to chlorophyceae, cyanophyceae and bacillario-phyceae. The quality and quantity of phytoplankton and their seasonal succession patterns have been utilized to assess the quality of water. Phytoplankton encountered in a water body reflects the average ecological condition of water and hence may be used as indicator of water quality. (Sharma and Sharma, 1992). Several Indian scientist (Vyas and Kumar, 1968; Munawar, 1970; Jackson, 1971; Rai and Kumar, 1977; Mathew, 1978; Singh and Swarup, 1979; Jindal and Vasisht, 1981; Ramaswamy et al., 1982; Rishi and Kachroo, 1984; Pandey et al., 1993 and Adesalu and Nwanko, 2005 have worked on phytoplankton of different water bodies in relation to various physico – chemical parameters. The role of phytoplankton in aquatic productivity has been discussed by Kant and Anand, 1979; Joshi,1996 and Nautiyal, 1986; who have recorded the fluctuations to the population of phytoplankton during different seasons of the year. Species composition of phytoplankton in any water body is important because different taxa of planktonic algae present different diet values in various development stages of fish and prawns (Nagarajaiah and Gupta, 1985; Nautiyal, 1985 and Gomathi, 1990). Despite of all this, the available literature revealed that the information on the phytoplankton of Bishleri stream are lacking. Threfore, the present study is an endeavour to elucidate the qualitative abundance of phytoplankton of Bishleri stream

Material and Methods

The present study was carried on Bishleri stream by dividing the stream into different stations. For the purpose of estimation of phytoplankton, monthly sampling was made between 9.00 to 11.00 hours at each station for the period of two years. One litre of water sample was collected by filtering 100 litres of water through plankton net of bolting silk No 25. (0.06 mm mesh size). Lugol’s solution was added to this water for preserving the phytoplankton. The sample was then brought to the laboratory for qualitative analyses. It was kept for sedimentation in one litre measuring capacity cylinder for 24 hours after adding Lugol’s solution and identification was carried out with the help of guidelines given by Needham and Needham (1962) and APHA (1995).

Results and Discussion

In all, 19 genera of phytoplankton were identified during the period of two year’s investigation. Out of 19 genera recorded, 7 belonged to Bacillariophyceae; 7 to Chlorophyceae; 4 to Cynophyceae and 1 to Euglenophyceae. Among the phytoplankton, Bacillariophyceae emerged as the largest group and was represented by Achnanthes, Asterionella, Amphora, Cyclotella, Cymbella, Gomponema and Navicula genera. The Chlorophyceae and Cynophyceae ranked 2^nd and 3^rd respectively The genera recorded from Chlorophyceae were Closterium, Closterdium, Cosmarium, Gonium, Microspora, Spirogyra and Uronema. The Cynophyceae was represented by Anabaena, Choococcus, Gloeotrichia and Oscillatoria, where as the Euglenophyceae is represented by only one genus i.e Phacus, which remained absent at all the sampling stations of the stream except station 2^nd, where it appeared occasionally in May and August, 2003 and April , May, June and September, 2004.

The maximum abundance phytoplankton was recorded during May, 2003 and June, 2004, where as minimum was recorded during the month of November in both the years of investigation. The phytoplankton population was found to increase slightly during the month of February which decline during March. From March onward, it started to increase again and reached its maximum in May, 2003 and June, 2004 and thereafter it got declined again. Khan et al. (1998) worked on the phytoplankton of river Ganga at Narora and reported phytoplankton population increased from spring onward, reached its maximum in summer and than declined again. The reason for the decline in phytoplankton population in March, as observed during present investigation, may be assigned to the increase in water level of the stream because of melting of snow and rains. This finding confirms with the observations recorded by Koford (1903), Chakraborty et al. ( 1959), Dad (1981) and Gupta et al. (1985).

The overall low density of phytoplankton plankton was probably due to occasional floods and fast current of the stream water.

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