Studies on Seasonal and Spatial Distribution of Zooplankton Communities and Their Diversity Indices at Chashma Lake, Pakistan

Huma Ayub1, Iftikhar Ahmad2, Syed Lal Shah3,*, Muhammad Zafarullah Bhatti4, Nuzhat Shafi5 and Mazhar Qayyum1

1Department of Zoology, Pir Mehar Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University, Rawalpindi

2Fish Hatchery, Rawal Town, Islamabad

3Pakistan Science Foundation, Islamabad

4Fish Biodiversity Hatchery, Chashma

5Department of Zoology, The University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Muzaffarabad

ABSTRACT

The study was conducted to investigate the seasonal and spatial distribution of zooplankton species at Chashma Lake during June 2014 to May 2015. The samples were collected from three partially separated stations of the Chashma Lake on a monthly basis. A total 42 species of zooplankton were identified from the Chashma Lake belonging to three taxa viz.; copepoda, rotifera and cladocera. The diversity of the zooplankton species in the lake was determined by richness and evenness indices, which were found as follows; Margalef Index 1.30 to 3.87, Shannon’s Index 2.54 to 3.68, Simpson Index 0.92 to 0.97, Simpson’s Reciprocal Index 12.25 to 37.69 and Pielou’s Evenness Index 0.94 to 1.0. The zooplankton community was found abundant in summer as compared to winter. The copepods were found dominant followed by rotifers and cladocerans for entire study period. The spatial distribution of zooplankton was not found prominent as compared to their seasonal distribution. However, rotifers showed spatial difference among sampling stations (ANOVA, p-value < 0.05). The present study provides a first detailed spatial and seasonal distribution of zooplankton in Chashma Lake, which may be a road map for further studies on zooplankton diversity in other freshwater lakes in the region.

Article Information

Received 21 February 2018

Revised 07 April 2018

Accepted 11 April 2018

Available online 21 May 2018

Authors’ Contribution

MQ planned the research project. HA Collected samples, performed laboratory work and wrote the article. IA and MZB helped in sampling. SLS provided laboratory facilities at Pakistan Museum of Natural History, Islamabad and identified zooplankton species. NS Proofread the manuscript and helped in data analysis.

Key words

Zooplankton, Chashma Lake, Diversity, Seasonal, Spatial.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17582/journal.pjz/2018.50.4.1293.1298

* Corresponding author: drsyed_1@yahoo.com

0030-9923/2018/0004-1293 $ 9.00/0

Copyright 2018 Zoological Society of Pakistan

Introduction

Zooplankton play an important role in aquatic environment. They actively participate in food chain and are responsible for nutrients recycling and energy transfer from producers to secondary and tertiary consumers (Datta, 2001; Park and Shin, 2007). They are also used as a direct prey for fish and large invertebrates. Influence of various physicochemical parameters, geographical features and complex diversity of zooplankton result in difficulty in zooplankton examination. They are considered as an important component of aquaculture and are also used as indicators of water quality, pollution level and status of eutrophication in freshwater bodies (Saler, 2009; Thor et al., 2005; Hwang et al., 2009). In Pakistan, some studies have been carried out on various aspects of zooplankton (Mahar et al., 2000, 2008; Baloch, 2000; Baloch and Soomro, 2004; Baloch et al., 2004, 2005; Kazmi, 2004; Shelly et al., 2011; Naz et al., 2012; Shah et al., 2013; Maqbool et al., 2014; Saddozai et al., 2015). However, no study on the zooplankton communities of Chashma Lake has so far been conducted.

The present study was conducted to determine the zooplankton species composition and distribution in Chashma Lake, which may be helpful in aquaculture management especially in fish hatchery sector, as the zooplankton are the main source of food for aquatic animals particularly for fish fry in freshwater ecosystem.

Materials and methods

Study site

Chashma Lake is a manmade lake and is situated on Indus River at 32º 25’ N, 71º 22’ E. This is a shallow lake and a wetland of international importance and is also a RAMSAR Site (Akbar et al., 2009). In order to obtain a comparative report of zooplankton distribution from the different sites, three stations S1, S2 and S3 were selected for study and marked by GPS.

Sampling

Zooplankton samples were collected on a monthly basis from June 2014 to May 2015. Five liters of water was filtered through a zooplankton net (mesh size 80 μm) from 1 to 2 feet depth at each site for the zooplankton population and preserved in 5 % formalin and shifted to Pakistan Museum of Natural History, Islamabad, Pakistan. In laboratory, zooplankton samples were analyzed and counted under light microscope (BH2 OLYMPUS, Japan with rotator eyepiece 10x) with the help of counting chamber. Various magnifications of 20x, 30x, 40x and 100x were also used for examination of specimens. Identification of zooplankton was made with the help of different taxonomic keys (Ward and Whipple, 1959; Pennak, 1978; Yunfang, 1995; Mizuno and Takahashi, 1991; Battish, 1992).

Table I.- List of zooplankton species observed at Chashma Lake during June 2014-May 2015.

The present study reveals that a total 42 species of zooplankton were found in Chashma Lake belonging to three taxa viz.; rotifers, cladocerans and copepods. Of these, 20 species belong to rotifers, 12 species to copepods and 10 species to cladocerans (Table I). On the basis of percent occurrence throughout the year, the copepods were found more abundant (47.93%) followed by rotifers (33.67%) and cladocerans (18.38%). The physical characteristics of three sampling sites in Chashma Lake are given in Table II.

Table II.- Physical characteristics of Chashma Lake.

Regarding seasonal variation in zooplankton species, it was found that the copepods were dominant in summer (March to September), followed by rotifers. Whereas, in winter rotifers were prominent in occurrence as compared to copepods. The cladocerans were dominant from early spring to summer and less in winter (Fig. 1).

Table III.- Values of diversity indices for different sites and months at Chashma Lake during June 2014-May 2015.

The values of diversity, richness and evenness indices of zooplankton in the Chashma Lake are presented seasonally and spatially (Table III). It was found that the Margalef value ranged from 1.30 to 3.87, lowest in December at S3 and highest in May at S3. The Shannon’s Diversity ranged from 2.54 (in December at S3) to 3.68 (in April at S1), whereas, the Simpson’s Diversity value varied from 0.92 (in December at S3) to 0.97 (in April at S1) and the Simpson’s Reciprocal Index ranged from 12.25 to 37.69 in December at S3 and in April at S1, respectively. The Pielou’s Evenness value ranged from 0.94 in February at S2 to 1.0 in November at S2, and in December at S1 and S2 (Table III).

These values reveal that the species diversity, richness and proportion were high in April at S1 and low in December at S3. However, interestingly, the evenness value demonstrates that the species were less evenly distributed in February and November at S2 and the species frequencies were remained similar in December at S1 and S2. When this difference was examined spatially by Box-plot (Fig. 2), no significant difference was found between all the sites for copepods and cladocerans (ANOVA, p-value >0.05). Whereas, the significant difference for rotifers was found between S1 and S3 and between S1 and S2 (ANOVA, p-value <0.05); however, no significant difference found between S2 and S3 (ANOVA, p-value >0.05).

The abundance of zooplankton community in Chashma Lake was found throughout the year and almost at all stations, however, it was more prominent in summer months. Sulehria et al. (2009), Salve and Hiware (2010) and Devaraju (2015) have reported similar findings in their work. Altindag et al. (2007) observed dominance of rotifers in their study in Mogan Lake. In current study, for zooplankton species, Shannon’s Diversity, Margalef value, Simpson’s Diversity and Simpson’s Reciprocal index values were also found. Shannon diversity is used to determine the diversity of a particular habitat and also for a comparison of various habitats for the abundance of the species (Clarke and Warwick, 2001). Evenness is a vital factor of diversity indices which presents the relation between the frequencies of species (Pielou, 1969) and it evaluates the relative abundance of different species which make richness of a habitat (Leinster and Cobbold, 2012). The Simpson index is used not only for counting the number of species, but also to find out the ratio of each species (Simpson, 1949). Simpson describes the possibility of any two individuals randomly caught belonging to different species (Bibi and Ali, 2013). Margalef index accounts for species richness of a habitat by the Gleason coefficient (Margalef, 1958). The index values rely on the number of species and not on the species frequencies.

In current study, the values for all measured indices were high in summer months and are in agreement with Maqbool et al. (2014). The values for diversity indices reveal that the zooplankton communities were heterogeneous by diversity index values especially when the difference between maximum and minimum values was high. During this study, it was also found that among three taxa of zooplankton, the copepods were dominant in occurrence from March to April, and were masked by rotifers in winter. Whereas, the cladocerans followed the same pattern as of copepods but were least abundant. Similar results have been reported by Mwaluma et al. (2003), Mahar et al. (2008), Maqbool et al. (2014) and Sulehria et al. (2009).

Among rotifers, Asplancha priodonta was more prevailing in winter season, while other species like Lecane arcula, Polyarthra species, Euchlanis triquetra, Keratella tropica and Brachionus havanaensis were found abundant in summer. Similar findings have been reported by many researchers (Nogueira, 2001; Sampaio et al., 2002; Sulehria and Malik, 2012). Saddozai et al. (2015) found that Keratella spp. were dominant in April and July. Yağcı (2014) also observed more Keratella from Lake Gölhisar, Turkey. It is also observed that Asplancha priodonta and Keratella valga were more prevalent at S3, while other species like Polyathra spp., Brachionus spp., Keratella tropica and Euchlanis triquetra were more abundant at S1. Among cladocerans, the Cerodaphnia cornuta, Daphnia and Alona were found more prominent in late winter and early spring at Chashma Lake. This may be due to low population of Cyanophyta in winter as compared to summer, which is not favored by Daphnia species, as reported by Kiss (2002). The Chydorus poppie and Cerodaphnia reticulate were found more prevailing in May and June whereas, Scapholeberis kingi and Macrothrix rosea were found abundant in May, June and July. This finding is in agreement with Mahar et al. (2008). Bosmina longirostris and Scapholeberis kingi showed their preference towards S1 and Cerodaphnia cornuta were higher at S3, while Alona guttata and Alona recticulata were more prevalent at S2. Whereas, all species of copepods were more abundant in summer as compared to winter. Furthermore, Macrocyclops fuscus, Diacyclops bicuspidatus and Eucyclops species were more prevalent at S1, whereas, Mesocyclop leukarti was more abundant at S3. Yildiz et al. (2007) and Ergonul et al. (2016) also observed the abundance of Keratella spp. and Bosmina longirostris in Anatolian lakes. The copepods found from Chashma Lake were abundant in summer and this finding is in agreement with Jhoshi (2011), Maqbool et al. (2014) and Devaraju (2015).

Conclusion

It is concluded that the Chashma Lake is very rich in zooplankton diversity in summer than in winter. The values of diversity indices reflect that zooplankton are more prevalent and rich in summer, whilst in terms of evenness, zooplankton community in the lake was found equitable.

Acknowledgements

We are greatly thankful to Fisheries Department, Government of Punjab, for providing logistic facilities for samples collection at Chashma Lake and to Pakistan Museum of Natural History, Islamabad, for laboratory facilities and identification of zooplankton species.

Statement of conflict of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this article.

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