A survey study on ashtoum El-Gamil park's water concerning phytoplankton populations

Abstract

Among the 19 water samples collected year round during (2010 – 2011) from Ashtoum El-Gamil Park, 12 samples succeeded to cluster above similarity level of 60%. The samples of similarity less than 60% were mainly sampled during summer. Total phytoplankton diversity marginally changed between lake stations. The highest diversity of 3.1 was found at station No. 4 in winter where a minimum diversity of 1.14 was found at station No. 1 in spring. The dominant classes in Lake Manzala (Ashtoum El-Gamil Park) were chlorophytes, diatoms and cyanoprokaryotes. The three groups altogether constitute more than 95% and 85% of the total phytoplankton abundance and total number of taxa, respectively. Based on cell number, the chlorophytes ranked the first position of dominance with relative abundance of 84.23% and they exclusively dominated the phytoplankton communities year round. Regarding the species composition, chlorophytes dominated the phytoplankton species composition with percentage occurrence of 44% to the total number of recorded species. The phytoplankton abundance showed major peaks during spring at different stations except at station No. 2 where the highest abundance of 28716 cells x 10 5 l -1 was found, whereas the minor peaks were irregularly distributed between other seasons with the least abundance of 704 cells x 10 5 l -1 which was detected during winter at station No. 4. Generall, the total number of taxa per site showed no obvious pattern of variation. It is concluded that presence and biodiversity of phytoplankton are affected by locations and seasons, and the pollution is under the critical levels.