Distribution of benthic foraminiferal assemblage and heavy metals as a characterization of the environment in Lake Edku, Egypt.

Elshanawany, Rehab; Naiel, Bassant; Fawzy, Manal

doi:10.21608/ejabf.2019.38330

Distribution of benthic foraminiferal assemblage and heavy metals as a characterization of the environment in Lake Edku, Egypt.

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

10.21608/ejabf.2019.38330

Abstract

Lake Edku receives considerable amounts of domestic, agricultural, and industrial waste water. Accordingly, the response of benthic foraminifera to heavy metal pollution has been assessed. Surficial sediment samples were collected at 11 stations throughout the lake during June and December 2013. At each station, pH, dissolved oxygen, temperature, salinity, transparency, water depth, concentrations of Pb, Cu and Cd were measured. Benthic foraminiferal distribution and its relationship with environmental parameters and heavy metal concentrations have been investigated using redundancy analysis (RDA) and cluster analysis. The resulted data show that the foraminiferal distribution was significantly affected by these heavy metals pollution. The distribution pattern shows great dominance of Ammonia tepida which confirms its tolerance to heavy metals pollution especially Cu and Cd. Porosononion spp.correlates positively with Cu, while Saccorhiza ramosa correlates positively with Pb and Cd. The most sensitive species to higher concentrations of heavy metals is Ammonia Parkinsoniana.It has negative correlation with Pb, Cu and Cd. Limited number of living foraminiferal specimens, low foraminiferal density and diversity have been recorded in Lake Edku. Relatively high percentage of deformed foraminiferal tests (~ 21%) has been observed in the lake.

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