Zooplankton abundance, diversity and its relationship with physicochemical parameters of three ponds in Chittagong University campus, Bangladesh

Abundance and diversity of zooplankton with relation to physicochemical parameters in three ponds at Chittagong University campus was conducted for two years period from January 2017 to December 2018.A total of 72 samples were collected from the three ponds, whereby 33 zooplankton species belonging to five classes were identified.Among the 5 classes, Rotifera was the most dominant and abundant group which contributed 54.17%-72.73% of the total zooplankton population.The overall contribution of Rotifera was 72.73%, 54.17% and 61.90% in ponds 1, 2 and 3 respectively and among Rotifera, Brachionus was the most dominant and abundant genus.Copepoda (8.33-14.29%)and Cladocera (9.09-25.0%)were moderately abundant and Nematoda (4.17-4.76%)and Protozoa (4.55-8.33%)were the least abundant groups in all the three ponds.Significant direct or inverse relationships of zooplankton were observed with some physicochemical parameters.Zooplankton in Pond 1 showed positive significant relationship with air temperature (r = 0.61, P<0.05), water temperature (r = 0.57, P<0.1), BOD (r = 0.69, P<0.05) and freeCO2 (r = 0.66, P<0.05).In Pond 2, Zooplankton showed positive significant relationship with air temperature (r = 0.55, P<0.1), water temperature (r = 0.67, P<0.05) and transparency (r = 0.52, P<0.1) and Zooplankton in Pond 3 showed inverse relationship with alkalinity (r = -0.52,P<0.1).