The zooplankton community of Lake Abo Zaabal, a newly-formed mining lake in Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

Abo Zaabal Lake, a new mining lake at the outskirts of Cairo, receives domestic sewage from a nearby village. We examined its chemical and biological properties in order to develop a plan to improve its ecosystem services. The pH ranged between 7.8 and 8.5, salinity was 17ppt and conductivity was 28 mS cm -1 , indicating brackish water. The pelagic zooplankton community comprised Rotifera (16%), Protozoa (Ciliophora and Rhizopoda) (18%) and Copepoda (16%). Cladocera were seldom recorded. Hexarthra, Brachionus and Rotaria were the dominant rotifer taxa. Several characteristics -including the community composition, the dominance of small ciliates and nauplii, the abundance of Cyanobacteria, and the absence of macrophytes -indicated that it is a severely eutrophic lake. To improve the water quality we recommend that: (1) domestic sewage inflow should be stopped so as to reduce nutrient loading into the basin; (2) the growth of rooted macrophytes should be encouraged so as to increase water transparency by reducing phytoplankton biomass through competition for nutrients; and (3) piscivorous fish should be introduced to control zooplanktivorous fish in the lake and thus promote the growth of large filter-feeding zooplankton.

Phytoplankton Composition at Jeddah Coast–Red Sea, Saudi Arabia in Relation to some Ecological Factors

“…2) were due to the domestic wastewater discharge. This is in agreement with the findings of El-Bassat & Tyalor [28] , they reported that, nitrogen and phosphorus compounds are always present in domestic wastewaters. Nitrite is one of the dissolved inorganic nitrogen forms present in water bodies and can be used as pollution indicator.…”

Variations in the Zooplankton Species Structure of Eutrophic Lakes in Turkey

“…Among the species identified in the lake, B. angularis, F. longiseta, Keratella quadrata [19,57], B. longirostris and G. testudinaria ( [58][59][60] species grow in eutrophic conditions. According to QB/T Rotifera index, with the values of Karamık Lake with QB/T = 2.3 [46], Xochimilco Lake (Mexico) QB/T = 10 [81], Dojran Lake (Macedonia) QB/T = 1.6 [82], Beyşehir Lake (Beyşehir, Turkey) QB/T = 1.5-2 [30,31], Gölcük Lake (Ödemiş, İzmir, Turkey) QB/T = 5 [48], Ladik Lake (Samsun, Turkey) QB/T = 5 [10], Abo Zaabal Lake (Cairo, Egypt) QB/T = 4 [83], Liman Lake (Kızılırmak delta, Turkey) QB/T = 2.5 [84] were shown as eutrophic. Rotifera species were used as indicator while identifying the trophic condition of the lake.…”

Ecological factors affecting the distribution of the zooplankton community in the Tigris River at Baghdad region, Iraq

“…Therefore, they are of considerable potential value' as water quality indicators (Sla´decek, 1983;Murugan et al, 1998). Zooplankton offer several advantages as indicators of environmental quality in both lakes and rivers: as a group, they have worldwide distribution and the species composition and community structure are sensitive for changes in environmental conditions, nutrient enrichment (Jha and Barat, 2003) and different levels of pollution (El-Bassat, 2007).…”