Species diversity of phyto- and zooplankton in the water bodies of Kharanorskaya State District Power Plant, Transbaikalia (according to 2019 data)

Abstract

We described the taxonomic structure of planktonic associations in the water bodies of Kharanor State District Power Plant (cooling pond, water supply, drainage, and water intake channels of Kharanor reservoir located in the arid zone of the south-eastern Transbaikalia in a highly continental climate). Hydrobiological researches were conducted in April, July, and October 2019. We identified 141 algal taxa ranked below the genus, representing the divisions of Cyanobacteria (15 taxa), Bacillariophyta (41), Chrysophyta (10), Cryptophyta (3), Dinophyta (4), Charophyta (8), Chlorophyta (56), and Euglenophyta (4), and 52 zooplankton taxa, including 28 species and subspecies of Rotifera, 15 species of Cladocera, and 9 species of Copepoda. In the cooling reservoir, the plankton community included 135 phytoplankton taxa and 38 zooplankton species; 58 algal taxa and 27 invertebrate species were sampled in the water supply channel, 50 taxa and 26 species were sampled in the drainage channel, and 94 taxa and 24 species were collected from water intake channel respectively. Six diatom species (Stephanodiscus hantzschii, Nitzschia sigmoidea, Fragilaria radians, Asterionella formosa, Ulnaria ulna) and four zooplankton species (rotifers Asplanchna priodonta and crustaceans Daphnia galeata, Bosmina longirostris, Thermocyclops crassus) occurred in all water bodies during the entire study period.