The assessment of Plankton diversity in Yamuna River at selected sites in Haryana: A post-COVID-19 Study

Abstract

The study was conducted in three sampling sites: Yamunanagar, Panipat, and Faridabad, along the Yamuna River. The samples were collected monthly from selected sampling sites from September 2021 to April 2022. Depending on their nature, plankton can be separated into two major groups, phytoplankton and Zooplankton. The qualitative analysis of these four samples in one site revealed that there are 17 genera of phytoplankton in total, belonging to four major groups, (i) Bacillariophyceae (consisting of 3 genera), (ii) Chlorophyceae (consisting of 10 genera), (iii) Euglenophyceae (consisting two genera), (iv) Cyanophyceae ( consisting three genera). A total of 30 genera of Zooplankton belong to four classes i) Protozoa, ii) Copepoda, iii) Cladocera and iv) Rotifers. Copepoda included ten genera, Cladocera included 13 genera, Rotifers included 05 genera, and Protozoa represented by two genera only. The diversity of phytoplankton was maximum in a segment first Yamunanagar (value of Simpson’s index is lower than 0.3416). The diversity of Zooplankton was maximum in segment first and almost equal to segment second Panipat. The temperature of river water ranged from 8.38±0.08 –21.33±0.13 °C, pH range from 6.00±0.11 - 8.03±0.11, D.O. from 1.68±0.06 – 8.10±0.007mg/l, total alkalinity from 83.25±0.48 – 351.75±11.89mg/l and total hardness 121.75±1.93 – 279.25±6.29mg/l.