Abstract
Nutrient concentration is an important parameter to recognize critical processes of an ecosystem and environmental quality. This paper is based on a study carried out to evaluate the nutrient status in sediments, water and plant leaves from Ratargul swamp forest of Bangladesh during the period from September 2016 to August 2017. The samples were collected from twelve sampling stations of four different canals during dry (September 2016 to April 2017) and wet (May to August, 2017) seasons, respectively. The nutrient contents such as total nitrogen (TN), available phosphorus (AP) and total organic carbon (TOC) were analysed in the laboratory of the Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA), Mymensingh, Bangladesh. The TN, AP and TOC in sediments were ranged from 2.22 to 5.23, 0.032 to 0.035 and 2.6 to 4.52%, respectively, whereas TN and AP in water were found 5.34 to 22.54% and 0.002 to 0.366%, respectively. Result showed that the TOC in plant leaves was higher in wet season than in dry season, where the TN and AP were higher in dry season than in wet season due to high temperature which increases the rate of photosynthetic activities in the dry season. In both Korochand Hijal plants, the TOC and AP were higher in green leaves than brown leaves, while TN was higher in brown leaves than green ones. Moreover, a statistically significant positive correlation was found among the samples. The study concluded that the nutrient status in sediments, water and leaves were perfectly natural during both the dry and wet season.
Highlights
Freshwater swamps are the unique ecosystems having very specific vegetation
Results of this study concluded that the sediments of the Ratargul Swamp forest were nutrientsenriched indicating that more input of external anthropogenic nutrient in turn may disturb the present ecological balance of this complex ecosystem
The amount of Total nitrogen (TN) and available phosphorus (AP) in the water was higher in the wet season than dry season which might be due to the excessive use of nitrogen and phosphorous in the surrounding agricultural land
Summary
Freshwater swamps are the unique ecosystems having very specific vegetation. Water is the prime requisite for the vegetation of the swamp forests (Manhas et al, 2009). Due to variation in topography, a distinct floristic diversity is seen which is quite varied from the surrounding area (Sharma and Joshi, 2008) They support characteristic vegetation on account of specialized edaphic conditions, as influenced by free water accumulation (Gupta et al, 2006). An ecosystem consists of plants, animals and microorganisms, which live in a definite zone along with the physical factors such as sediments, water and air; within an ecosystem, there are dynamic interrelationships between the living forms and their physical environment (Islam et al, 2016) This relationship is manifested as the natural nutrient cycles that provide a continuous circulation of the essential constituents necessary for sustaining the life processes in an ecosystem (De, 2010)
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