Studies on the fresh water algal flora in chimmony wildlife sanctuary

Abstract

Algae is a crucial organism in the environment. They help in maintaining the balance among different ecosystems. According to the geography and climatic conditions, newlineKerala has a suitable environment for algal growth. However, the algal biodiversity newlinestudies conducted in Kerala are significantly less. The wildlife sanctuary comprises a newlineconsiderable scope for algal biodiversity. The Chimmony wildlife sanctuary is situated in Mukundapuram taluk of Thrissur district. It spreads over 85.067 km2 with a water spread area of 10.1 km2. Ten different sampling stations were selected across newlinethe wildlife sanctuary, and extensive field visits were conducted to identify and newlinedocument the algae with respect to three seasons (pre-monsoon, monsoon, and post- newlinemonsoon). The physicochemical parameters of water like dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, alkalinity, total dissolved solids, light intensity, and rainfall amount were estimated seasonally. In this present study, a total of 121 taxa belonging to 60 genera, 38 families, 24 orders, and 5 classes, namely Chlorophyceae, Bacillariophyceae, Euglenineae, Rhodophyceae, and Cyanophyceae, were identified from 10 different stations. The Bacillariophyceae and Chlorophyceae were the most dominant class in the study area. The algal multiplication will be more in the pre monsoon season and it was observed that the Chlorophyceaen members were dominant, while the Bacillariophyceae were dominant during the post-monsoon season. Cyanophyceae was dominant only during the monsoon season because of its sensitivity toward light. The ANOVA (Two-way) analysis showed no significant difference between stations, and there is a considerable difference between seasons for dissolved oxygen, alkalinity, temperature, and total dissolved solids. While pH, showed no significant difference between seasons and stations, light intensity showed a substantial difference between stations and seasons. The temperature and dissolved oxygen showed a negative correlation.