Publisher's Synopsis
Master's Thesis from the year 2011 in the subject Biology - Geobiology, language: English, abstract: This thesis is about the abundance and diversity of zooplankton and weed bed macro invertebrates in the Fogera Floodplain. The abundance and diversity of zooplankton was studied in 2010/2011. Three study sites were selected in the study area based on land use and substrate type. Physico-chemical data ware taken in situ using combined probe To, pH, TDS and Conductivity and secchi depth for water transparency. Zooplankton and Macro invertebrate samples were also collected by using a 250 μm mesh sized dep net. The data ware sorted and identified at family level in the laboratory. The result of two way ANOVA indicated that all physico-chemical parameters showed significant spatial and temporal variation. A total of 26 taxa comprising of 4,344 individuals of macro invertebrates were collected from the study sites. The taxa richness at the study sites ranged from 21 at Amendamesk (AM) to 24 at Taqua (TQ) and Alewbahir (AB) while the individuals number ranged from 1233 at AM to 1664 at AB. Invertebrate species richness was dominated by collectors and predators at all sites. Collectors were relatively higher at (AB), while predators were higher in abundance and diversity in all sites. Some of the macro invertebrate metrics calculated from the sample data showed spatial and temporal variation. The metrics Shannon Diversity Index (SDI), evenness index and percent taxa richness were lower during the dry season while Dominant Taxa (DT) were higher. The sensitive metrics (SDI and Taxa Richness) showed negative correlation with T0, pH, TDS and Conductivity and positive correlation with secchi depth while DT responded in the opposite way. Zooplankton community in the study sites was dominated by copepods in all sites which contributed 88% of the total community and were best represented by calanoids while Cladocerans and rotifers were the least abundant groups. In general the f
