Diversity of phytoplankton and its relationship with physicochemical parameters of three ponds in Chittagong University campus, Bangladesh

This study was conducted for two years, from January 2017 to December 2018 to find out the phytoplankton diversity and its relationship with the physicochemical parameters of three ponds at Chittagong University Campus. Species compositions of phytoplankton was 42.86% blue-green algae, 14.29% green algae, 28.57% desmids and 14.29% diatoms in Pond 1, 33.33% blue-green algae, 33.33% green algae and 33.33% desmids in Pond 2 and 33.33% blue-green algae, 50% green algae and 16.67% desmids in pond 3. The total species of phytoplankton classes were recorded as 4, which included 7 species under 7 genera, 9 species under 9 genera and 6 species under 6 genera in the ponds 1, 2 and 3 respectively. The more number of species of phytoplankton was observed in Pond 2 than the other two ponds. Phytoplankton showed direct relationship with DO (Pond 1, r= 0.73, P<0.01), water temperature (Pond 1, r= 0.51, P<0.1), (Pond 3, r= 0.52, P<0.1), air temperature (Pond 1, r = 0.58, P<0.1) and an inverse relationship with transparency (Pond 1, r = -0.56, P<0.1).