Composition and Distribution of Benthic Diatoms in Different Habitats of Burdur River Basin

Abstract

Diatoms constitute an essential component for biomonitoring studies to determine the ecological quality of waterbodies. In this study, benthic diatoms of Burdur River Basin were investigated as a consequence of a project on river basin management plan. This is the first detailed taxonomical study of diatoms taken from 13 streams, 4 lakes and 6 reservoirs of Burdur River Basin and a total of 223 taxa have been observed. Among genera, Navicula Bory (27) and Nitzschia Hassal (27) were represented with the highest numbers of taxa and followed by Gomphonema Agardh with a total of 22 species. Navicula antonii Lange-Bertalot and Nitzschia palea var. debilis (Kützing) Grunow had the highest relative abundance with 17.1% and 15.5% respectively. As a closed basin, salinity varied greatly from fresh to saline water between the sampling stations and diatom composition contained species with a different tolerance level. Navicula antonii and Nitzschia frustulum (Kützing) Grunow observed in all habitats indicating their euryhaline characters; however Navicula digitoconvergens was only detected in saline Acıgöl lake with a high relative abundance (38%) in autumn. Other two dominant species were Halamphora coffeiformis (Kützing) Levkov and Navicula cincta (Ehrenberg) Ralfs in Acıgöl lake showing their tolerance to high salt content as a brackish species. According to first results, 11 species were new records for Turkish diatom flora. The high biodiversity of diatoms revealed the presence of different habitat characteristics within the basin. These results are an important contribution of Turkish diatom flora and could be useful for monitoring specific areas like Burdur River Basin.