A Survey of Phytoplankton Taxa from Three Types of Wetlands in Ohio

Abstract

In an effort to better understand the broad heterogeneity of different wetlands, we sampled the phytoplankton communities from three types of wetlands (constructed, non-impacted, and temporary) in Ohio. During the summer of 1995, one phytoplankton sample from each of 18 wetlands was collected in order to describe and compare the phytoplankton communities. No significant differences were evident in species richness, J's evenness, and Shannon-Wiener (HP) diversity indices among the three classes of wetlands. In addition, there were no significant differences in the total abundance of any algal division among the wetland types. Large variability in the total abundance of algal divisions within each wetland type was observed. Trend detection may have been masked by limitations of the one-time sampling regime. Nonetheless, this study provides a preliminary taxonomic listing of the phytoplanktonic algae from the three wetland types.