Abstract
The present study was aimed to assess the impact of physico-chemical parameters of water on the rotifer community in Wular Lake, the largest freshwater lake in the Indian subcontinent. Water samples were collected between September, 2012 to August, 2014 from nine study sites. Rotifers were collected by filtering 100 liters of water through a nylon silk net having 75 meshes/ linear cm and preserved in 5% formalin. Rotifers were abundant during summer and lower diversity was observed during the winter. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett's test was also performed to check the significance of the all the variables with the rotifer species. KMO test reflects that the data can be preceded for PCA as the data reflects significant values. The physico-chemical parameters such as water temperature (19.3±8C°to 23.3 ± 9.9 C°), depth (1.7±0.8m to 4±1.7 m), pH (7.1±0.2 to 7.8±0.4) and total phosphate phosphorus (201±86.4 to 257.3±119.4 µg/l) strongly influenced the rotifer community in the lake.
Highlights
Rotifers in aquatic ecosystems are exposed to many changes in their physical, chemical and biological processes deciding their survival in aquatic ecosystems (King and Serra, 1998)
Some of the wheel animalcule (Rotifers) species involve in the decomposition of soil organic matter and are considered to be an important food link of water ecosystems (Arora and Mehra, 2003)
Environmental variations are the most crucial factors for any organism living in temperate lakes
Summary
Rotifers in aquatic ecosystems are exposed to many changes in their physical, chemical and biological processes (rate of reproduction, survival etc.) deciding their survival in aquatic ecosystems (King and Serra, 1998) Some of these changes may be comparatively trifling and organisms can acclimatize, or modify their position in the water column, or sometimes alter their behavior as well. Temperature and chemistry of the water are the most outstanding contributors that affect the qualitative and quantitative composition of plankters in aquatic ecosystems Most of these parameters show seasonal patterns of change within an annual cycle. No published work is available on Wular Lake till date In this backdrop, the present study was undertaken to study to identify environmental factors that affect the rotifer community in Wular Lake, a Ramsar Site of International Importance in Kashmir Himalaya
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