HR: 16:45h
AN: NB44A-06    [Abstracts]
TI: Ecological health monitoring of the Mekong River by using benthic algae in 2003-2004
AU: * kunpradid, t
EM: tkunpradid@hotmail.com
AF: tatporn, dept. of Biology, Fac. of Science, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, THAILAND 50200, chiang mai, 50200 Thailand
AB: The monitoring of ecological health of the Mekong River by using benthic algae was carried out from 2003 - 2004. Thirty sampling sites along the Mekong River and its tributaries were selected in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Veitnam. In this investigation, the distribution of some species of benthic algae in different environments revealed that there was a significant relationship in the presence of them to the water quality, and these species could be used as a potential biomonitor of water quality in the Mekong River. One hundred and eighty six species of benthic diatoms and 46 species of macroalgae were found. Some dominant species of benthic algae could be used as biomonitors to assess water quality. Hydrodictyon recticulatum and Microspora floccosa and indicated clean-moderate water quality; Audouinella cylindrica, Cladophora glomerata, Achnanthes inflate and Cymbella turgidula indicated moderate water quality; Stigeoclonium flagelliforum, Aulacoseira granulata and Cymbella tumida indicated moderate-polluted water quality and Caloglossa leprieurii, Gomphonema parvulum and Nitzschia clausii indicated polluted water quality. The ecological health assessment of the Mekong River by using the species of benthic algae as biomonitors reveled that in the upstream and tributaries revealed moderate water quality. In contrast, some sites in the lower Mekong showed moderate-polluted to polluted water quality.
DE: 1845 Limnology
SC: North American Benthological Society [NB]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly