Content area
Full Text
Abstract The fresh water habitat studied were river, streams, ponds, stagnant water and waste water. Among this stagnant water, ponds were found to be most favorable for the growth of most of the species. Similarly, slow running water was also found to favor algae growth. Algae species were reported from all water bodies. There is a great variety of algae existing in the water bodies of District Malakand. It is evident that among the seasons the best growth season for almost all genera of cyanobacteria was summer. Apart from summer some of the species were common for all the seasons and some were common to summer with early winter or spring. A total of 68 blue-green algal species belonging to 29 genera were recorded from the various habitats in five major regions of district Malakand.
The genera identified were: Anabaena (4 spp.), Anacystis (1 sp.), Aphanocapsa (3 spp.), Aphanothece (2 spp.), Arthrospira (3 spp.), Calothrix (4 spp.), Chroococcus (4 spp.), Cyanobacterium (1 sp), Cylindrospermum (3 sp.), Geitlerinema (2 spp.), Gloeocapsa (4 spp.), Gloeothece (1 sp.), Gloeotrichia (2 spp.), Lyngbya (3 spp.), Merismopedia (6 spp.), Microchaete (1 sp.), Microcoleus (1 sp.), Microcystis (4 spp.), Nodularia (1 sp.), Nostoc (2 spp.), Oscillatoria (4 spp.), Pleurococcus (1 sp.), Phormidium (1 sp.), Planktothrix (1 sp.), Plectonema (1 sp.), Rivularia (1 sp.), Scytonema (2 spp.), Spirulina (2 spp.) and Synechococcus (2 spp.). The present study showed that District Malakand is rich in algal diversity and needs firther investigations.
Key words: Algae, Cyanobacteria, diversity, habitat, Malakand Pakistan.
INTRODUCTION This part of the present research work is related to the identification of algae from different habitats of district Malakand. Algae are a very important group of organisms and can affect human life both positively and negatively. Algae are a good source of food and energy. Among them the unicellular algae has a major contribution as food source (Geoghegan, 1951). Chlorella is the rich source of nutrients for the chick (Combs, 1952) and the most useful organism to fix atmospheric nitrogen especially the blue green algae (Allison and Morris, 1930). Nitrogen fixing blue-green algae has a positive effect on the growth of rice (Watanabe et al., 1951).
Certain algae help in utilization of nitrogenous organic compounds and sodium salts of organic acids like...