Revista de ecosistemas y ecografía

Abstracto

Species Composition, Diversity and Population Dyanamics of Phytoplankton at Saderkot in Wular Lake, Kashmir

Aaliya Ismat Baba and Ashok K Pandit

The present study deals with the general ecological studies on phytoplankton community in terms of species composition and density at Saderkot in Wular Lake, Kashmir. A total of 70 phytoplankton taxa were identified representing four classes namely Bacillariophyceae (41), Chlorophyceae (12) and Cyanophyceae (10) and Euglenophyceae (7). The percentage contribution of density also followed the same pattern with Bacillariophyceae contributing 56 %, followed by Chlorophyceae, (20 %); Cyanophyceae (17 %) and Euglenophyceae (7 %) in a decreasing order. The dominance pattern of species in the population density were Diatoma sp. ˃ Navicula radiosa ˃ Fragilariforma virescens ˃ Fragilaria capucina ˃ Navicula angusta ˃Amphora ovalis among Bacillariphyceae, Cosmarium monomazum ˃ Spirogyra sp. ˃ Pediastrum biradiatum among Chlorophyceae, Oscillatoria limosa ˃ Phormidium mucosum ˃ Anabaena torulosa among Cyanophyceae and Euglena acus ˃ Phacus suecicia among Euglenophyceae. Further, phytoplankton populations showed two peaks, one in summer and the other in autumn, with Bacillariophyceae dominating in autumn and winter, Chlorophyceae dominating in spring and both Cyanophyceae and Euglenophyceae dominating in summer. Highest values of Shannon-Wiener Index were recorded for Bacillariophycece (3.424) while the highest evenness (J′) value (0.9302) was registered for Euglenophyceae. Further, highest values for species dominance were obtained for Cyanophyceae (0.2485) and lowest for Baccilariophyceae (0.04154).