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DIVERSITY OF FRESHWATER GREEN MACROALGAE IN THE PUNJAB AND NEIGHBOURING AREAS OF PAKISTAN

A. ZARINA¹, MASUD-UL-HASAN² AND MUSTAFA SHAMEEL³

Abstract: Altogether 139 species of planktonic, edaphic, epioikotic, epiphytic and epilithic algae belonging to 3 phyla, 5 classes, 13 orders, 14 families and 26 genera have been collected from various freshwater habitats in several districts of the Punjab Province of Pakistan as well as certain areas of NWFP and Azad Kashmir during December 2003 and July 2005. All of them were taxonomically known species, but are recorded for the first time from their area of collection. Among them 6 genera and 82 species are first reports from Pakistan. Members of the phylum Chlorophycota with 22 genera and 127 species were found to be more prevalent than other two phyla, and the Zygnemophyceae appeared to be the largest class with 7 genera and 91 species. At ordinal level, Zygnemales was most commonly distributed with 5 genera and 65 species, and Spirogyra with 42 species was the most commonly occurring genus. An overwhelming amount of species was found in the planktonic condition, followed by epiphytes and rest in the edaphic and epilithic habitats. Largest number of species was found in Lahore district among 12 localities. The algae were found to grow in all the four seasons, but the largest proportion of their collection was made in spring. Their frequency of occurrence remained almost the same during summer and winter but was smallest in autumn.

¹Department of Botany, Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science & Technology, Gulshan-e-Iqbal Campus, Karachi-75300

²Department of Botany, Government College University, Kachehri Road, Lahore-54000

³Department of Botany, University of Karachi, Karachi-75270, Pakistan

Corresponding author: zarinaali2006@yahoo.com