Study On Community Structure Of Algae In The Salt Lakes Area In Yuncheng, Shanxi Province

Yuncheng Salt Lake is situated in the Yuncheng Basin in the southern of Shanxi province. This big natural saline lake which is located in north of China is also the largest lake in Shanxi Province. Yuncheng Salt Lake and its adjacent waters constitute a complex water system that contains all the types of waters, those are fresh water bodies (with salt concent at0.01-0.5%o), mesohalinous water bodies (with salt concent at0.5-30%o), euhalinous water bodies (with salt concent at30-40%o) and polyhalinous water bodies (with salt concent at40-347%o). We collected specimens for4times from September of2010to November of2011and got about130samples in this area. Those samples covered all the water types in this region. All the samples were observed with the optical microscope based on the morphological identification, and by this the algae composition of each water types were determined, at the same time the relationship between algae and salt content were investigated. This had important significance to the study of algae ecology and the comprehensive utilization of resources in Yuncheng Salt Lake.A total of366algae species were identified from Yuncheng Salt Lake area, wich belonged to9divisions,55families and122genera. Among them90species from10families and26genera were classified as Cyanophyta,116species from21families and49genera were classified as Chlorophyta,110species from13families and28genera were classified as Bacillariophyta,39species from3family and8genera were classified as Euglenophyta,3species from1family and2genera were classified as Cryptophyta,2specie from2family and2genera were classified as Pyrrhophyta,3species from2family and2genera were classified as Xanthophyta,2species from2family and2genera were classified as Chrysophyta,1species from1family and1genera were classified as Charophyta. Most of those were occasional species and only a few were predominance species in water, for example, Chroococcus minor, Spirulina platensis, Anabaenopsis arnoldi, Gymnodinium aeruginosum, Euglena viridis, Pandorina morum, Cyclotella meneghiniana and so on.The algal composition in this area were mainly the species of Cyanophyta, Bacillariophyta and Chlorophyta, and the proportion of them were24.6%,31.7%and30.1%respectively. The species of Euglenophyta were also very abundant and most of them could tolerate pollutants well. This indicated that the water quality of Yuncheng Saline Lake had suffered from different degrees of pollution. With the increasing of salt content of water, the algae species reduced significantly. Most of the algae species were distributed in fresh waters and mesohalinous waters, but only a few species were distributed in euhalinous waters and polyhalinous waters, for example, Oscillatoria spp., Lyngbya maior, Spirulina platensis, Carteria sp., Dunalielina salina, Chlorella vulgaris, Navicula spp., Nitzschia spp, Amphora sp., Chaetoceros mulleri and so on.