Indian Journal of Fundamental and Applied Life Sciences ISSN: 2231– 6345 (Online) An Open Access, Online International Journal Available at http://www.cibtech.org/jls.htm 2016 Vol. 6 (2) April-June, pp. 91-100/Rishi et al. Research Article Centre for Info Bio Technology (CIBTech) 91 A SYSTEMATIC ACCOUNT OF ORDER CHROOCOCCALES FROM RIVER GANGA AT KANPUR, UP, INDIA *Vinod Rishi 1 , Ravindra Singh 1 and A. K. Awasthi 2 1 Department of Botany, M.G.C.G. University, Chitrakoot, Satna, M.P 2 Department of Botany, Brahmanand P.G. College, Kanpur, U.P. *Author for Correspondence ABSTRACT The cyanobacteria are an immense group of gram-negative photosynthetic prokaryotes. They are morphologically diverse i.e. they may be found as unicellular, colonial and filamentous. Basically, Order Chroococcales represents the unicellular and colonial forms of cyanobacteria. The present study based on the systematic account of Chroococcales found in five sampling stations of river Ganga at Kanpur, between Bithoorghat to Jajmaughat, during the period from February 2013 to January 1014. During the present study 29 species belonging to 9 genera were identified and all these species belongs to single family Chroococcaceae. The observed genera were Microcystis (Kuetzing), Chroococcus (Naegeli), Gloeocapsa (Kuetzing), Gloeothece (Naegeli), Aphanocapsa (Naegeli), Aphanothece (Naegeli), Synechococcus (Naegeli), Synechocystis (Sauvageau) and Merismopedia (Meyen). Keywords: Cyanobacteria, Chroococcales, Ganga INTRODUCTION Cyanobacteria are nature's inimitable souvenir for mankind because they possess several innate properties those make them ideal organisms with potential for versatile biotechnological applications (Bullerjahn and Post, 2014). They are large and morphologically diverse group of unique photosynthetic organisms of great importance because of their very long existence for well over 3.5-3.8 billion years ago (Tomitani, et al., 2006) and cosmopolitan distribution in terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats (Whitton and Potts, 2000). The morphology of the cyanobacteria is remarkable. Both unicellular and filamentous forms are known and considerable variations within these morphological types occur. According to Bergey’s Manual cyanobacteria has been divided into five morphological groups: unicellular dividing by binary fission, unicellular dividing by multiple fission (colonial), filamentous containing differentiated cells called heterocysts that function is nitrogen fixation, filamentous non heterocystous forms and branched filamentous types. The first cyanobacteria Calothrix indica described by Montagne in 1849 from Assam and Kirtikar (1886) was the first Indian to record any alga. Ghose (1919, 1923, 1926, 1927a, b) published a series of publications and widely contributed to our knowledge on the Indian Blue-green algae. Bhardwaja (1933) began a series of studies on Indian blue-green algae. Bhardwaja (1935) and his students (Singh, 1939a,b; Singh, 1941; Rao, 1936,1937, 1938a,b; Rao, 1939, 1940; Parukutty, 1939, 1940) have further contributed to our knowledge of cyanobacterial flora of India. Desikachary (1959) was the major contributor of Indian cyanobacteria and he has explored several cyanobacteria from different parts of India. Laxmi Narayana (1965) was made studies on phytoplankton of river Ganges, Varanasi, UP. During the past few years some relevant literature have also been available on cyanobacterial diversity and ecology from different regions of India (Parikh, et al., 2006; Gupta, et al., 2006; Saha, et al., 2007; Kumar, 2010; Kumar, et al., 2011;Patil et al., 2012). Some reports also available on algal studies at Kanpur (Ahmad, 1973; Shukla, 1983; Tripathi and Pandey, 1989; Tiwari, et al., 2001; Tiwari and Shukla, 2007, Rishi and Awasthi, 2015). The present investigation deals the detailed studies on the observed members of Chroococcales from five Ghats of River Ganga at Kanpur. Few taxonomic studies on this order have also been made by Naskar, et