PLANKTON ASSEMBLAGE AND WATER QUALITY

CHAPTER ONE

1.1   INTRODUCTION

Plankton is the foundation of the oceans food wed the word plankton comes from a Greek word plankton which means drifting  plankton are organism drifting in column  of the oceans seas and bodies of fresh water. Plankton are made of both plant origin (phytoplankton) and animal origin (zooplankton) however they form the early foods for fish. The productivity of any water body is determine by the amount of plankton it contain as they are the major primary and secondary producer (pavis  et al 2015)  In the last three decades several studies on the phytoplankton and zoo plankton of Nigeria freshwater and brakish water bodies have been carried out but few studies on the marine environment have been reported (Opute 2015). Large phytoplankton creeks tends to be grazed by large phytoplankton resulting in shorter simplier foods wed and more efficient matters and energy transfer to large consumer (Tremply el al zone )plankton occurs naturally in water bodies and abundant quantity of plankton can be raised in concrete tanks and earthen pond (niffr,2011).however the abundant of plankton that are found in water body is basically dependence in the percentage of pollution that migrate its growth that is plankton abundance is affects by percentage of pollution Tremble et al 2014) Weiss and Stockner  (2013) observed that energy in palegic ecosystem flow from phytoplankton the primary producer to zooplankton the consumer through the classical foods chain and microbial foods weds modes that use phytoplankton primary production as the main controlling variable fish predicting fish yield in lakes and reservoirs’ has resulted in more successful prediction than many other method (Knosche and Barthelme’s 2014)

There is a range of chemical physical and biological competent that affect water quality. Some of which could provide a general indication of water pollution while other enable the direct tracking of pollution sources these indication include not only its physiochemical characteristics but also aquatic organism and biochemical techniques sequel to this many group of organism have been used as indicators of water quality bodies including algae macrophysics protozoa fish and other animal. Plankton which are all those group of tiny float drift or freely of feeble swim  in water column independent of the shore and bottom occupy the base level of foods chains (autotrophs) that lead up to commercial important fisheries have severally been used as biv indicators or water quality. Additionally, plankton communities, play a major role in the biogeo-chemical cycles of many important elements such as the carbon cycles nitrification demineralization and metuanogenesis.
These circles brings about such process as primary production and recycling

1.2.  Objective of the study

The studies have the following objectives.