Volume : 3, Issue : 6, June - 2014

Zooplankton Diversity in Dal Lake–A Comparative Study

Tanveer. H. Bhat, Dr. Rashmi Arnold

Abstract :

Comparison of Zooplankton at the selected sites of Dal Lake was carried out (Nov. 2002 to Oct. 2004 and May 2010 to Apr 2011) to find the changes in the water quality over the years. For physico–chemical analysis of water, sampling was done once in a month and samples were collected from both surface and bottom of the Lake in polyethylene bottles of 1 L capacity from pre–selected sites with the help of Ruttner type water sampler. The water temperature in general ranged from 4–27ËšC with usual trend maximum in summer and minimum in winter. The pH values fluctuated between 7.1 and 9.3 indicating the Lake to be on alkaline side. A total of 40 taxa of Zooplankton were recorded during both the periods of study. In the studies carried out from Nov. 2002 to Oct. 2004, a total of 27 rotifer and 13 crustaceans and from May 2010 to Apr 2011, 8 rotifer and 5 crustacean taxa were recorded respectively