Abstract
This research was conducted to at two of the few remaining habitats of the threatened freshwater clam (Galatea paradoxa) at the Volta Estuary in Ghana to describe the current state of the clam habitat with respect to the physicochemical water parameters and the characterize the bottom sediment on which they thrive. The research was carried out over an 18-month period with the aim of facilitating the transplanting of juvenile clams from their natural habitats to portions of the estuarine environments with similar physicochemical and characteristics which will consequently lead to the conservation of the clampopulation and expansion of the clam habitat. The measured physicochemical water parameters were fairly similar at the two locations and exhibited temporal fluctuations which could be attributed to seasonal changes as well as anthropogenic activities within the catchment of the sampling locations.The results of the grain size analyses revealed very low sedimentological diversity and it was observed that the estuarine sediments fall under the sandy textural group (>95%) which characterized both sampling locations in the Estuary.
Highlights
The freshwater clam, Galatea paradoxa (Born 1778) is a bivalve mollusc belonging to the family Donacidae (Purchon, 1963) and is usually restricted to the lower reaches of a few rivers in West Africa including the Volta inGhana (King and Udoidiong, 1991).It constitutes an important and affordable protein source to the riparian human communities of the Lower Volta,and has for centuries been the basis of a thriving artisanal fishery and a means of livelihood for between 10002000 people(Amador, 1997)
The changes in the flow regime have led to physicochemical changes in the water and there has been a gradual but massive shift in the habitat of Galatea paradoxa from the upper and mid-section of the lower Volta River
Temperature values over the 18-month period varied between a narrow range of 27.28°C and 29.59°C in September 2008 and June 2009 for the Ada sampling station and between 27.19°C and 29.62°C for the Aveglo sampling station. These values fell within the long-term-temperature range values from the Ada Synoptic Station which indicated that the minimum average temperature is 24oC, whereas the maximum average is 31oC.Dissolved oxygen (DO) values for the Ada sampling station ranged from a low of 1.52mg/l in September 2008 to 8.76mg/l in March 2008
Summary
The freshwater clam, Galatea paradoxa (Born 1778) is a bivalve mollusc belonging to the family Donacidae (Purchon, 1963) and is usually restricted to the lower reaches of a few rivers in West Africa including the Volta inGhana (King and Udoidiong, 1991).It constitutes an important and affordable protein source to the riparian human communities of the Lower Volta,and has for centuries been the basis of a thriving artisanal fishery and a means of livelihood for between 10002000 people(Amador, 1997). The construction of the Akosombo and Kpong Hydroelectric Dams on the Volta River in 1964 and 1981 respectively have led to the subsequent absence of annual floods and the formations of sandbars which have gradually prevented the flow of saline water upstream into the River channel during high tides (UNEP, 2002).
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