Phytoplankton in rivers in Flanders Belgium

Study Extent

covered timeframe: year from 2007 to 2007 historical data: no season: spring, summer temporal resolution/frequency of sampling: per month time series data: yes sample specification: quantitative (abundance data) replicate samples: no

Sampling

specification of method(s) used for sampling and sorting: Water bodies were monthly sampled during the growing season of a one-year period, from a bridge of the shore using a bucket. Each time, a 250ml subsample fixed using 125µl alcalic lugol, 6.25ml borax buffered formaldehyde (35%) and 250µm sodiumthiosulfaat (5 %).Samples were kept dark and cool until microscopic analysis, which was executed according to the European CEN-standard (EN 15204, 2006). In this method, a known volume of the sample was concentrated in a cuvet, after which different phytoplankton taxa were identified along a transect using an inverted microscope (Wild M40). When to much detritus was present, samples were coloured using Bengal red, to enable recognizing cells. For each sample, at least 250 individuals were counted, which was used to calculated to number of individuals per ml. Colonies were counted as one individual.

Method steps

1. commonly used series of methods steps regarding phytoplankton (e.g. sampling, identification, data management)

all unicellular eukaryotes and cyanobacteria

1. Eukarya
   common name: eukaryotes rank: domain
2. Cyanobacteria
   common name: cyanobacteria rank: phylum

Rivers, canals and streams from the Flemish part of Belgium.