Benthic community study and seasonal variation of zooplankton biomass in Dukan Lake Kurdistan Region-Iraq

Abstract EN

A study of benthic invertebrates and seasonal variation of zooplankton biomass has been carried out at three selected sites on Dukan Lake.

Monthly samples of water, benthic and zooplankton invertebrates were collected during period from July 2016 to the February 2017.

Some physical and chemical properties of water were studied and the results showed that the air temperature ranged from 1 to 36.5°C, water temperature ranged from 4 to 32.5°C, hydrogen ion concentration (pH) of studied lake were ranged from 7.01 to 8.6.

electrical conductivity ranged from 163.39 to 801.19 µs.cm-1, turbidity level of lake during studied period were ranged from 1 to 8NTU, dissolved oxygen from 3 to 6.1 mg.l-1, and BOD5 were ranged from 1 to 26 mg.-1.

Concerning to benthic invertebrates the results showed that a total of 18 species were recorded belonged to Nematoda, Annelida, Arthropoda and Mollusca.

Regarding to planktonic communities, total zooplankton number was ranged from 10 to 8726 ind.l-1.

While, the total count of phytoplankton was ranged from 99573 to 754001cell.l-1.

Positive correlation between total count of phytoplankton and total count of zooplankton was reported with r=0.455, r =0.478 and r =0.381 in the site1, site 2 and site 3 respectively