Biometrical study of artemia cysts harvested from the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan

Abstract

Artemia (Artemia parthenogenetica) has been consistently identified in the plankton of the salinizing Aral Sea since the 1990s and by now it has become dominant in the water body. The objective of the research was to investigate diameter, population and distribution of Artemia cysts in Aral Sea Basin, Uzbekistan. During the study observation, the diameter of untreated and decapsulated cysts and the chorion thickness were determined in samples collected in November 2020 on the eastern and southern shores of the Aral Sea remnant (Uzbekistan). The results showed that in samples from the eastern coast, the sizes of untreated cysts were 210-310 (on average 270.6 + 3.1) µm, the sizes of decapsulated cysts were 160-260 (212.2 + 3.8) µm, the calculated diameter of the chorion was 29.2 µm. In samples from the southern coast, the sizes of untreated cysts were 198-330 (265.3 + 4.09) µm, the sizes of decapsulated cysts were 198-297 (242.8 + 3.37) µm, and the calculated diameter of the chorion was 11.1 µm.