Impact of sewage disposal on a
nematode community of a tropical sandy beach
Mandar Nanajkar
and Baban Ingole*
Biological
Oceanographic Division, National Institute of Oceanography (CSIR), Dona Paula, Goa - 403 004, India
(Received:
July 23, 2009; Revised received: October 15, 2009; Accepted: February 27, 2010)
Abstract: Free-living marine nematodes from a intertidal sandy beach from Goa
near the Panjim city, central west coast of India
was investigated along a gradient of sewage pollution. High nematode diversity
(11 species) and abundance was observed near the sewage discharge point, which
decreased gradually away from the discharge site. The salinity and dissolved
oxygen of the estuarine water increased from the discharge point whereas
reverse trend was observed for the sedimentary organic carbon. The total
nematode densities indicated three-fold increase (from 523 to 1769 ind.10 cm-2)
in 25 yr with a contrasting gradient of nematode abundance, spatially from the
source point of sewage discharge. Daptonema sp is
known to be a good indicator of stressed and polluted habitats and was observed
to be the most dominant species at the study site. Being exposed to the
domestic sewage, the area also has high counts of pathogenic bacteria (e.g. E
coli and other colifrom types). Daptonema
sp are known to consume bacteria and presence of high bacterial biomass due to
nutrient enrichment from the discharged sewage enhanced their abundance. Thus,
the increasing nematode densities specifically like Daptonema
sp at organically polluted sites can be of immense aid to reduce pathogenicity and can potentially be applied in pollution
management and act as agents of natural bio-remediation.
Key words: Free-living nematodes, Daptonema
sp., Sandy
beach, Bacterial feeding, Pathogen, Sewage pollution, Bio-remediation, West
coast PDF of full length paper is available online
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