DIVERSITY ANALYSIS OF PHYTOPLANKTON COMMUNITY IN RELATION TO PHYSICOCHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CHATLA FLOODPLAIN LAKE OF DISTRICT CACHAR, ASSAM, NORTH EAST INDIA
B. ACHARJEE
Department of Zoology, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology Meghalaya, Techno City, Kling Road, Baridua, Ninth Mile, Ri-Bhoi, Meghalaya-793101, India.
S. B. LASKAR *
Department of Zoology, Madhab Chandra Das College, Sonai, Assam-788119, India.
A. H. CHOUDHURY
Department of Mathematics, Srikishan Sarda College, Hailakandi, Assam-788151, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
A study was carried out to investigate phytoplankton diversity in three different areas in Chatla floodplain lake (popularly known as Chatla Haor) in Cachar district of Assam, North East India over a period of one year (four seasons) (March, 2019-February, 2020). Composition, density and diversity of phytoplankton community were studied in relation to physicochemical characteristics of water. Phytoplankton community was comprised of 36 taxa out of which 19 belonged to Chlorophyceae, 10 to Cyanophyceae, 6 to Bacillariophyceae and 1 to Euglenophyceae. The most common genera belonging to Chlorophyceae are Chlorella, Desmidium, Microspora, Spirogyra, and Zygnema, that belonging to Cyanophyceae are Anabaena, Nostoc, and Spirulina, that belonging to Bacillariophyceae are Cymbella, Navicula, Nitzschia, and Synedra, and that belonging to Euglenophyceae are Euglena. In terms of relative abundance, Chlorophyceae was highest and Euglenophyceae was lowest in all the three sites. Shannon-Wiener diversity index was highest in Site II and lowest in Site III. The value for one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was significant at 1% probability level for both phytoplankton classes and phytoplankton species.
Keywords: ANOVA, correlation matrix, density, relative abundance, seasonal variation