A Study of Phytoplankton Communities and Related Environmental Factors in Euphrates River (between Two Cities: Al-Musayyab and Hindiya), Iraq

Journal of Environmental Protection, 2013, 4, 1071-1079
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jep.2013.410123 Published Online October 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/jep)
1071
A Study of Phytoplankton Communities and Related Environmental Factors in Euphrates River (between Two Cities: Al-Musayyab and Hindiya), Iraq
Jasim M. Salman1, Hassan J. Jawad2, Ahmmed J. Nassar1, Fikrat M. Hassan3*
1College of Science, University of Babylon, Hilla, Iraq; 2College of Science, University of Karbala, Holly Karbala, Iraq; 3College of Science for Woman, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq.
Email: *fik.has@gmail.com
Received July 30th, 2013; revised August 28th, 2013; accepted September 24th, 2013
Copyright © 2013 Jasim M. Salman et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
ABSTRACT
The phytoplankton communities and related physical-chemical features of the Euphrates River at its middle region in- side Iraqi territory were studied during the study period from October 2011 to September 2012. Samples were taken from Al-Musayab district extending to Al-Hindia district. The phytoplankton community (quantitative, qualitative and Chlorophyll-a) have been studied, in addition to many environmental parameters such as temperature, pH, electric con- ductivity (EC), Salinity (‰), TDS, TSS, dissolved oxygen, BOD5. A total of 105 phytoplankton taxa belonging to Ba- cillariophyta (69), Chlorophyta (19), Cynophyta (12), Euglenophyta (3), and Dinophyta (2) were recorded within the present study period. Some algal genera dominated mostly in the study period and sites such as Scendesmus, Melosira, Cymbella, Diatoma, Navicula, Nitiazschia and Syndera. A statistical analysis was done using the canonical correspon- dence analysis (CCA).
Keywords: Phytoplankton; Water Quality; Quantitative and Qualitative Study; Euphrates River; Iraq
1. Introduction
Phytoplankton, considered as the basic component of an aquatic food chain, is the source of oxygen and the main autochthonous primary producers [1]. The floristic varia- tion in phytoplankton community depends on the avail- ability of nutrients, temperature, light intensity and on other limnological factors [2]. Phytoplankton is one of the major biological elements used for the assessment of the ecological status of surface water bodies, and the variation in the biotic parameters provides a good indica- tion of energy turnover in aquatic environments, due to its sensitivity to any change in the environment [3,4]. Many authors emphasized the importance of phytoplank- ton as bioindictors in different aquatic systems [5-7].
Many previous researches on the Euphrates River showed the phytoplankton composition and the effect of lotic characteristics especially in the south of Iraq [8-10]. Few studies worked on the middle region of the Euphra- tes River inside Iraq [11-15].
The present study aims at filling the gap of informa- tion on phytoplankton communities and water quality of the studied area.
2. Materials and Methods
The present study area was chosen along the Euphrates River, middle of Iraq, between al-Musayab city (near the northern of Al-Hindiya barrage) to Al-Hindiya city (for- merly Twareej: near the southern holy city of Karbala). The three sites were chosen in this area (Figure 1).
The current study was carried out from October 2011 to September 2012. Physical and chemical properties of the river water (Temperature, PH, electrical conductivity, salinity, TDS, TSS, dissolved oxygen, BOD5) were meas- ured according to [16], chlorophyll-a study site was meas- ured [17].
Phytoplankton was collected from the sampling sites with plankton net [18,19] for qualitative study, while a sedimentation technique was used for quantitative study. The micro transect methods were used for counting dia- toms, and hemocytometer methods for other groups [20]. Identification of the phytoplankton was done by follow- *Corresponding author. ing references [21-26]. The statistic analyses were done
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