Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Bull Environ Contam Toxicol DOI 10.1007/s00128-017-2110-x Efects of Water pH on Life History Parameters of a New Bosminid Cladocera: Bosmina (Bosmina) Tripurae (Korinek, Saha and Bhattachaya, 1999) in Laboratory Condition Himadri Saha 1  · K. S. Wisdom 1  · Asem Lembika Devi 1  · Da‑u‑ruhi Pde 1  · Sukham Tuni Devi 1  · Makamguang Kamei 1  · Anamika Biswas 1  · Ratan K. Saha 1  · Prasenjit Pal 1   Received: 29 March 2016 / Accepted: 9 May 2017 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017 Genus Bosmina is one of the most important cladocera that is widely distributed in freshwater bodies of tropical and temperate regions (Threlkeld 1981; Siraj et al. 2006; Genung 2012). In ponds and lakes of Tripura, India Bos- mina tripurae is commonly present-in zooplankton and is one of the most dominant cladocerans (Biswas 2014). Water pH is an important variable that infuenced cla- doceran communities in water bodies (Yan et al. 1996; Arnott et al. 2001) and pH of 6.5–8.0 is optimal for most of the aquatic organisms (Lawson 1997). Generally, most of the species favour alkaline water (Duigan and Kovach 1991). However, some cladocerans, including Alona inter- media, Chydorus ovalis, Bosmina longispina, Bosmina spp. and Rhynchotalona falcate (Fryer 1993) are able to toler- ate acidic water, and even demonstrated a preference for this. The abundance of B. longirortris increased with acid treatment in comparison to control treatment observed by Havens and DeCosta (1985). However, little is known about the efects of environmental parameters on life his- tory parameters of Bosminids. Many experimental studies have shown that water temperature and food conditions are the most important factors afecting the life history param- eters of Bosmina sp. (Urabe 2006; Begum et al. 2015). Bis- was et al. (2014) studied the life history traits of B. tripurae at laboratory culture, regarding growth and reproductive parameters. However, efect of pH on life cycle parameters of Bosminids particularly B. tripurae on labobaratory con- dition have not been studied so far. The related studies have mainly focused on the efect of acid stress on growth and development, reproduction and survival of Daphnia sp. (Walton et al. 1982; Moustafa 2007; Ghazy et al. 2011). This is the frst attempt to study B. tripurae as model organ- ism in ecotoxicological bioassay, as it is abundant in fresh- water bodies of NE region of India (Korinek et al. 1999; Sinha 2002) and easy to culture under laboratory conditions Abstract The efects of water pH on life history param- eters of Bosmina tripurae have been studied to determine the most suitable water pH desired for the maximum growth and development of this newly discovered clad- oceran species. The study was carried out under the labo- ratory condition at 20 ± 2°C. Five pH ranges 5.0 ± 0.2, 6.0 ± 0.2, 7.0 ± 0.2, 8.0 ± 0.2 and 9.0 ± 0.2 with six rep- licates for each pH consisting of one animal in each Petri dish (80 × 15 mm) were used for the study. 20 mL of respective test medium was maintained with Chlorella sp. (2 × 10 4 ± 0.03 cells mL −1 ) in each Petri dish throughout the experiment. Thirty (30) animals were observed daily to investigate diferent life history parameters like total life span, age at maturity, number of eggs, neonates and egg batches etc. at diferent condition. From the study it was found that acidic water (pH 5 ± 0.2) is more suitable for the culture of Bosmina tripurae in laboratory condition. Keywords Cladocera · Bosmina tripurae · Water pH · Eggs · Neonates · Hatching · Embryonic development Cladocerans are most abundant and major components of zooplankton in many aquatic ecosystems. They have spe- cial role in transfer of energy to the higher trophic levels such as juvenile fshes and aquatic invertebrates (Santos et al. 2010) and thus they act as a bridge between primary producer and other consumers in the natural food-web. * Himadri Saha sahacofcau@gmail.com 1 Department of Aquatic Health and Environment, College of Fisheries, Central Agricultural University, Lembucherra, West Tripura, Tripura 799 210, India