Abstract
The study determined the seasonal variation of Ntawogba creek??s water quality on some physical-chemical parameters and the diversity of benthic microinvertebrates as bioindicators of the river for twelve months .Based on ecological niche of the system and anthropogenic activities in the area, three sampling stations and their coordinates were established along the stretch of the stream. The physicochemical parameters studied include temperature, pH, conductivity, salinity, turbidity, total dissolved solids, dissolved oxygen and biochemical oxygen demand according to standard methods as described by APHA, 1988. Sediment particle size was determined during wet and dry seasons by hydrometer method. Replicate samples of benthic microinvertebrates were collected for each month randomly with Eckman??s grab, and their diversity determined using Shannon-Wiener index equitability species. Physicochemical data from the monthly collections were subjected to 2-way analysis of variance and the difference among means was separated by Turkey-honest significance difference at 95% of probability. Percentage occurrence and relative numerical abundance of microinvertebrates were calculated using excel descriptive statistical tools. The results of the physical ?? chemical variables revealed that the following parameters; temperature, conductivity, total dissolved solids, salinity were higher in dry season than in wet season, while turbidity and dissolved oxygen were higher in wet season due to increased water runoff. pH values alternated between slightly acidic and slightly alkalinity. The diversity and taxa richness were higher in wet season (1.914; 3.960) than dry season (0.877; 2.425). The seasonal variation compares favorably with those of similar environment in the Niger Delta,Nigeria.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Ethical Approval
Not applicable
Data Availability
The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].
Funding
This work did not receive any external funding.
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