Diversity and seasonal variation of phytoplankton community in the Santragachi Lake, West Bengal, India

Abstract

The study of phytoplankton diversity and its seasonal variation was carried out by sampling water taken from the Santragachi Lake, of West Bengal between November 2009 and July 2010. Various physico-chemical variables were recorded and the correlation of this with phytoplankton density was established using Canonical Correspondence Analysis. This showed that the density of phytoplankton was higher when temperature and nutrients were increased. A total of 29 phytoplankton taxa belonging to Chlorophyta (10), Cyanobacteria (8), Charophyta (5), Bacillariophyta (4), and Euglenozoa (2) were recorded from nine samples taken within the study period. Chlorophyta species dominated mostly in variety and percentage composition while Euglenozoa species representatives had the least expression. Bio-indication showed a low diverse community in the monsoon period with better water quality than in pre- and post-monsoon seasons. Various diversity indices (Shannon–Wiener diversity index, Gleason species richness index, Pielou evenness index, and Naughton dominance index) were used to establish the seasonal variation of phytoplankton. The Shannon–Wiener diversity index was most useful in indicating the trophic status of the water as well as the pollution status, which in this case, depicted a moderate level of pollution of this lake

Phytoplankton community of Lake Baskandi anua, Cachar District, Assam, North East India – An ecological study

“…This conformed to the studies made by Paramasivam and Srinivasan (1981), Maeda et al (1992), Kumari et al (2008), Ghosh et al (2012). Rain water might have brought more nutrients into the lake as surface run off which enhanced the growth of phytoplankton especially Cyanobacteria and Euglenophyceae.…”

“…etc. as shown by Swarnalatha and Narasingrao (1993) and Ghosh et al (2012). Ceratium hirundinella was also recorded in another oxbow lake of Cachar District (Das et al, 2011).…”

Resilience of estuarine phytoplankton and their temporal variability along salinity gradients during drought and hypersalinity

“…Marshall and Alden (1990) also concluded that salinity gradients in estuaries were more important than variation in nutrient concentrations in determining the composition of phytoplankton communities. This is however not always the case especially in freshwater dominated estuaries and lakes such as the Nyara Estuary (Walker et al, 2001) and Sundays Estuary (Kotsedi et al, 2012) in South Africa, or the Santragachi lake in, India (Ghosh et al, 2012), where phytoplankton community structure and blooms were mainly due to high nutrient concentrations.…”

Microalgal diversity in relation to the physicochemical parameters of some Industrial sites in Mangalore, South India

“…Multivariate analyses have been successfully used to analyse the changes in biological communities and the physicochemical variables in polluted sites (Aguilera et al 2006;Bernal et al 2008;Ghosh et al 2012). Principal component analysis (PCA) is a wellrecognized multivariate statistical tool that can be applied in the ecotoxicological monitoring programs to investigate differences between the variables.…”