IMPACT OF HEAVY METALS CONTAMINATION ON SPRING ABUNDANCE OF AQUATIC MACRO-INVERTEBRATES INHABITING LAKE TIMSAH, EGYPT

Abstract

Lake Timsah, Egypt receives several kinds of pollutants coming from domestic sewage of unconnected areas adjoining the shore and possibly marine pollution. During the last decades heavy metals have become common contami-nants of aquatic and wetland environments throughout the world because of human activity and technological develop-ment. Increasing attention has been given during the last decade to the protection of marine and freshwater aquatic envi-ronment against pollution, both nationally and internationally. Macro-benthoses are the most commonly organisms used as bio-indicators water quality assessment. All of the aquatic macro-invertebrates that were collected from El-Taween station, Lake Timsah, Egypt fell into three major groups that were fairly easy to identify. They were annelids (Polychaeta and Oligochaeta), molluscs (Bivalvia and Gastropoda) and arthropods (Crustacea). The small sized crustacean Sphaeroma. serratum are considered suitable species for aquatic bio-monitoring because they hold an important position in the aquatic food chain responds to many pollutants, easy to culture and has short life cycles. Iron was most important determinant; it appears in high concentrations in both water sample and the tissue of crustacean sample (S. serratum).