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Impact of salinity and pH on phytoplankton communities in a tropical freshwater system: An investigation with pigment analysis by HPLC

DRS at CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography

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Title Impact of salinity and pH on phytoplankton communities in a tropical freshwater system: An investigation with pigment analysis by HPLC
 
Creator Chakraborty, P.
Acharyya, T.
Babu, P.V.R.
Bandyopadhyay, D.
 
Subject phytoplankton
cyanobacteria
biomass
green algae
 
Description An in vitro study was carried out to understand the effects of salinity shock and variation in pH on phytoplankton communities in a tropical freshwater system of the Godavari River (a major peninsular river in India). The distributions of, and variations in, phytoplankton communities were assessed by quantitative determination of their class specific marker pigments, using HPLC. Subtle changes in salinity of the freshwater by one practical salinity unit (PSU) completely removed green algae from the system and allowed the cyanobacteria to come into dominance. The cyanobacteria were found to tolerate higher osmotic stress until the salinity reached a PSU of 16. The higher salinity tolerance range of the cyanobacteria was attributed to the enhanced synthesis of zeaxanthin as protective xanthophylls against the osmotic stress. However, the effects of changing pH were not as dramatic as salinity where the green algae and the cyanobacteria from the same freshwater system showed a considerable acclimation towards the fluctuating pH. These findings are environmentally relevant to understand the likely impact of salt water intrusion and pH variation on phytoplankton communities in a tropical freshwater system.
 
Date 2011-03-11T09:35:56Z
2011-03-11T09:35:56Z
2011
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Journal of Environmental Monitoring, vol.13(3); 2011; 614-620
http://drs.nio.org/drs/handle/2264/3821
 
Language en
 
Rights An edited version of this paper was published by and © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c0em00333f
 
Publisher The Royal Society of Chemistry