Effects of environmental factors on the growth and development of Astacous leptodactylous in Aras River and its Reservoir

In order to study plankton population composition and species diversity in different regions of Aras rivers and the evident reservoir sampling was performed monthly from determined sampling sites from April 2007 to March 2008. Sampling was conducted in reservoir lake by a PVC pipe with 2.25 m length and 5 cm diameter by columnar method. Besides, in more dipper (>5 m) sites, sampling conducted from bottom to surface with 1-m intervals (layer sampling) by a 2-liter Ruttner type sampler. In river due to water flow sampling was conducted by a scaled measure. Phytoplankton sampling was performed by 1-liter bottles. Zooplankton was sampled by filtering of 30 L through 55- micron plankton net. These samples were then transferred into bottles and sampling date and the name of station were attached on the bottles. Then, the samples were fixed immediately and transported to laboratory. It should be mentioned some physical parameters were determined in situ. Also, a 1liter and another 2-liter water were collected to determine chlorophyll a and chemical factors respectively. Samples were preserved in dark and cold place for a week. The upper layers (without phytoplankton) were removed and the lower layer (with phytoplankton) was sampled into 5-ml chambers. The enumeration and identification was performed by a Nikon TS100 inverted microscope with ×400 (Phytoplankton) and ×200 (Zooplankton) magnification according to Utermohl (1958) method. About 50 fields were enumerated for each sample. The comparison of physicochemical and biological factors with standard criterion indicated that the presence of a fertile plain, agricultural growth, drought and higher water demand in recent years, as well as, higher population density, the Nakhjavan city location and sewage water flows into the Aras reservoir, the lake is going to be an eutroph lake. Sampling of crayfish was performed from 5 sampling sites seasonally. Aras reservoir freshwater crayfish biomass was sampled in 1391, by putting 100 funnel-shaped nets. At each site one row nets composed of 20 nets were put by rocks, connecting robe and boat. Twenty four hours later, total freshwater cray fish was sampled (at least 300 crayfish was randomly sampled from each site). The samples were transported to laboratory and their sex, sex percentage, biometric characteristics including length, weight were recorded. Length and weight groups were estimated totally and for males and females in each season. The average total length and weight were 106.43 ± 7.94 mm and 35.81 ± 10.86 gr respectively which both are lower than West-Azarbaijan fisheries criterion. In this study only 18.99 percent contained a length higher than exporting level (120 mm). Yet, only 16.46 percent of harvesting had higher than 50 g (exporting level). With regard to data, freshwater shrimp (Astacus leptodactylus) in Aras dam reservoir stock has reduced. In general, male-female ratio was high. The comparison of growth equations confirms that males had higher weights than equal females. In recent years, the freshwater crayfish harvesting has been declined due to increased harvesting and over loading of nutrients into the lake.

Iranian Fisheries Science Research Institute

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