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Impact of Nypa Palm (Nypa fruticans) and Mangroves Forests on Plankton Community along Andoni River, Nigeria  

U.O. Emoyoma , A.O. Numbere , G.N. Woke
Department of Animal and Environmental Biology, University of Port Harcourt, P.M.B. 5323, Choba, Nigeria
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Marine Science, 2019, Vol. 9, No. 4   doi: 10.5376/ijms.2019.09.0004
Received: 03 Jul., 2019    Accepted: 25 Aug., 2019    Published: 10 Oct., 2019
© 2019 BioPublisher Publishing Platform
This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:

Emoyoma U.O., Numbere A.O., Woke G.N., 2019, Impact of Nypa Palm (Nypa fruticans) and mangroves forests on plankton community along Andoni River, Nigeria, International Journal of Marine Science, 9(4): 36-44 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2019.09.0004)

Abstract

The invasion of mangroves forest by nypa palm is said to affect the ability of the mangroves to act as a spawning ground for fishes. It is thus hypothesized that nypa palm presence in mangrove forest will impact their fish spawning ability due to the reduction in plankton population. A total of four stations were chosen: station 1 (open water), Station 2 (nypa palm dominant), station 3 (Rhizophora and Avicennia dominant), Station 4 (Mixed forest). Results of water quality parameters include; pH (6.99 ± 0.16), temperature (28.20°C ± 0.05°C), DO (4.71 ± 0.18 mg/L), conductivity (19.52 ± 0.20 µm/s), salinity (10.76 ± 0.07 ppt) and TDS (13.45 ± 0.27 ppt). Mean values of the physico-chemical parameters were not significantly different from each other (P > 0.05). In all 737 zooplankton in eleven genera were collected. Copepoda dominated with 75.1%. Similarly, 4774 phytoplankton in six taxa were collected. Bacilliarophyceae dominated with 87.45%. Shannon Weiner index across the stations was highest in station 4 (0.36) and lowest in station 1 (0.33). Margalef’s index was highest in stations 2, 3, and 4 (3.48) and lowest in station 1 (2.67). Pielou’s index of evenness was highest in station 4 (0.099) and lowest in station 1 (0.089). The composition and abundance of plankton showed no significant difference across the four stations (P > 0.05). This implies that the presence of Nypa fruticans (Wurmb) did not have negative impact on the abundance and diversity of plankton.

Keywords
Phytoplankton; Zooplankton; Nypa palm; Rhyzophora; Andoni River; Mangrove forest
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