Effect of Water Quality on Phytoplankton Abundance in Selected Ponds of Nedumangad Block Panchayat, Kerala

The present study was carried out to analyze the plankton diversity of 36 selected ponds in Nedumangad Block Panchayat. It is crucial to observe the physico-chemical features of a water body for different term investigations as the survival and activity of organisms depends on the environmental characteristics of that water body. Plankton analysis showed the presence of phytoplankton belonging to the class Cyanophyceae, Chlorophyceae, Bacillariophyceae and zooplanktons found are Zoea larvae and Mysis larvae of prawn. Moreover, phytoplankton reflects the water environmental condition at the time of growing and sampling.Phytoplanktons are greatly affected by ecological conditions like salt stress, temperature, pH, biological oxygen demand and other environmental factors. The plankton abundance was calculated for 10 selected ponds. Carl Pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated for abundance with pH, EC, DO and temperature. Abundance depends on the temperature variations and levels of DO as they are positively correlated while abundance does not have any interdependence on both the EC and pH as they are negatively correlated. Results of plankton abundance of various ponds at Nedumangad as studied in the present investigation clearly shows that the water is not good for human consumption and also struggling for their existence. Algal analysis thus showed that water quality of the pond has reached at threshold level and therefore, it needs some corrective measures to maintain the water chemistry of the pond and this will help the society to get an awareness of the quality of the water they are using for daily consumption and thereby rectify the present condition.