A Study on Spatio-Temporal Variations in Physicochemical Parameters and Ciliate Community Structure of Three Freshwater Bodies from Delhi, India.

Abstract The present investigation studied the spatial and temporal variation of the physicochemical parameters and their correlation with the ciliate community structure. Samples were collected from three freshwater sites viz., Okhla Bird Sanctuary (OBS), Sanjay Lake (SL) and Raj Ghat (RJ) in alternate months for one year from September 2018 to August 2019. Physicochemical parameters studied were temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), total dissolved solids (TDS), water hardness (WH), chloride, sulphate, phosphate, nitrite, nitrate and ammonia. Ciliate diversity, structure and abundance were studied using various diversity indices. Multiple statistical methods such as Pearson correlation coefficients, principal component analysis (PCA) and non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) were applied to analyze the data. Maximum ciliate diversity, richness and evenness were observed in the OBS site. Maximum ciliate diversity was observed from class Spirotrichea (47%), followed by Oligohymenophorea (20%), Prostomatea (16%), Phyllopharyngea (6%), Colpodea (5%), Heterotrichea (3%), Litostomatea (2%) and Karyorelictea (1%). Maximum diversity was observed during the monsoon and post monsoon season and lowest during the winter and summer season. The present study on the dynamics of the environment driven community assembly suggests that ciliates are good indicators for assessing community-level responses and can be useful in predicting the water quality as well as environmental degradation in future.