IOSR Journal of Environmental Science, Toxicology and Food Technology (IOSR-JESTFT) e-ISSN: 2319-2402,p- ISSN: 2319-2399.Volume 14, Issue 6 Ser. I (June 2020), PP 46-52 www.iosrjournals.org DOI: 10.9790/2402-1406014652 www.iosrjournals.org 46 | Page Diversity of phytoplankton and its relationship with physicochemical parameters of three ponds in Chittagong University campus, Bangladesh M. Saiful Islam* 1 , M. Ali Azadi 2 , Munira Nasiruddin 3 and M. Safiqul Islam 4 1.3.4. Department of Zoology, University of Chittagong, Chittagong 4331 2. International Islamic University Chittagong, Chittagong 4318 Abstract: This study was conducted for two years, from January 2017 to December 2018 to find out the phytoplankton diversity and its relationship with the physicochemical parameters of three ponds at Chittagong University Campus. Species compositions of phytoplankton was 42.86% Blue-Green Algae, 14.29% Green Algae, 28.57% Desmids and 14.29% Diatoms in pond 1, 33.33% Blue-Green Algae, 33.33% Green Algae and 33.33% Desmids in Pond 2 and 33.33% Blue-Green Algae, 50% Green Algae and 16.67% Desmids in pond 3. The total species of phytoplankton classes were recorded as 4, which included 7 species under 7 genera, 9 species under 9 genera and 6 species under 6 genera in the Ponds 1, 2 and 3 respectively. The more number of species of phytoplankton was observed in pond 2 than the other two ponds. Phytoplankton showed direct relationship with DO (Pond 1, r= 0.73, P<0.01), water temperature (Pond 1, r= 0.51, P<0.1), (Pond 3, r= 0.52, P<0.1), air temperature (Pond 1, r = 0.58, P<0.1) and an inverse relationship with transparency (Pond 1, r = -0.56, P<0.1). Keywords: Phytoplankton diversity, Physicochemical parameters, Ponds, Correlation --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date of Submission: 21-05-2020 Date of Acceptance: 08-06-2020 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. Introduction Plankton is part of aquatic life, which composes tiny organisms living and drifting in the direction of water current. It acts as the main source of food for most faunal both in lotic and lentic water ecosystems. In aquatic food chain, phytoplankton is the most important microscopic algal communities in a water body. In an aquatic ecosystem the productivity is directly related to phytoplankton diversity (Ansari et al., 2015). The zooplankton and fish production depend to large degree on the phytoplankton (Boney, 1975). Plankton is a good indicator of changes in water quality because it is strongly affected by environmental conditions and responds quickly to changes in environmental quality. Historically the ponds are excavated by humanbeing mainly for the storage of water for drinking purposes and other domestic uses like cooking, washing clothes, utensils and bathing. But recently the ponds are excavated for the culture of fishes like the major Indian carps, Cat fishes, Tilapia and some species of exotic carps. On the other hand the ponds are also made for different recreational purposes like swimming, boating and angling.The Chittagong University (CU) campus covering an area of 1754 acres is situated in an urban hilly area of Hathazari Upazilla, Chittagong, where some manmade lentic and natural lotic water bodies including lakes and ponds are present. Some water reservoirs like ponds were constructed in the CU campus in different times for fulfilling the necessity of campus residents and are used by the some campus resident employees and students for different purposes like water polo, swimming, bathing and fish culture. Despite the high economic value of ponds, limnological works on the ponds are very few. Some mentionable ones in Bangladesh and India are as follows: Sayeswara et al. (2011), Bhatnagar and Devi (2013), Ansari et al. (2015), Nair et al. (2015), Elayaraj et al. (2016),Joseph (2017), Rahaman et al. (2017), Dhanasekaran et al. (2017) and Ansari and Singh (2017). So far, in this respect no detailed works were found on the three selected ponds at CU campus. So, the present study was undertaken to find out the phytoplankton diversity and its relationship with the physicochemical parameters of the three ponds at CU campus. II. Materials And Methods Study area: Location and information of three ponds at Chittagong University campus (Fig.1): Pond-1 is known as Shova colony pond (Latitude 22° 483778΄ and Longitude 91° 79082΄) (Fig.1). This pond was excavated for general use and is now extensively used by CU employees residing around the pond, for their household washing, bathing and also for dumping their wastes mainly during rainy season. Pond-2 is known as