Water quality assessment of River Penna, YSR Kadapa District, Andhra Pradesh with ectoparasites of Wallago attu Bloch and Schneider, 1801
1*Anu prasanna Vankara
Department of Zoology, Yogi Vemana University, YSR Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh-516005, India *Corresponding author: annuprasanna@gmail.com and dr.anu@yogivemanauniversity.ac.in Mobile no. 07032825689; ORCID ID: 0000-0003-0286-2387 LiveDna ID: http://livedna.org/91.16872
ABSTRACT
Parasites act as potential quality indicators of an aquatic environment. Parasites are helpful in assessing the various types of water pollution caused by heavy metals, pesticides, agricultural and industrial wastes, eutrophification and thermal pollution etc. Parasitological survey on ectoparasites was carried out on the gills of Wallago attu (n= 95) from two different locations on River Penna flowing YSR Kadapa District, Andhra Pradesh from August, 2017 to February, 2018. A total of 3202 parasites belonging three ectoparasitic groups i.e., three monogeneans- Thaparocleidus indicus, thaparocleidus wallagonius, Mizelleus indicus, one copepod- Ergasilus malnadensis and one isopod- Alitropus typus were detected. There was significant correlation (P < 0.05) between the prevalence of ectoparasites in W. attu and some water quality (e. g. dissolved oxygen, alkalinity, total dissolved salts and electrical conductivity) parameters of River Penna. Parasitisation was analysed location wise and fishes collected from Site- II (Somasila backwaters, Vontimitta) were highly infected with ectoparasites than the Site-I. The positive correlation exists between the ectoparasitic infection and water quality variables in the two study sites have led to the conclusion that ectoparasites can act as good biological indicators in assessing the water quality of River Penna