Zooplankton occurrences and abundance in the Lake Albert system, Uganda

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 1,482 records.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Kiggundu V, Egessa R, Mwebaza-Ndawula L (2022): Zooplankton occurrences and abundance in the Lake Albert system, Uganda. v1.0. National Fisheries Resources Research Institute. Dataset/Occurrence. http://ipt-uganda.gbif.fr/resource?r=albert_zooplankton&v=1.0

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is National Fisheries Resources Research Institute. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: f96f2ea7-da31-452d-9ce9-2d22847cebd3.  National Fisheries Resources Research Institute publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Uganda.

Keywords

Occurrence; Uganda; Zooplankton; Lake Albert

Contacts

Geographic Coverage

This work was part of research and monitoring studies done in predetermined localities of Lake Albert, Luzira lagoon, and river mouths of Rivers Nkusi, Waki, Muzizi, and Wambabya.

Taxonomic Coverage

The taxa include three broad groups of zooplankton: Copepoda, Cladocera and Rotifera

Temporal Coverage

Project Data

NaFIRRI implemented biodiversity informatics projects in the past but freshwater biodiversity data remained in less useful formats. This data was mobilized from data from available in soft and hard copy records at NaFIRRI. The data was collected through multiple projects that took place over the period covered by the data in the Lake Edward system.

The personnel involved in the project:

Sampling Methods

Zooplankton samples were collected with a conical plankton net (Nansen type; mesh size 60 µm and mouth diameter of 0.25 m), towed vertically through the water column, as described by Fernando (2002) and Mwebaza-Ndawula (1994). Three hauls were taken and combined to make composite samples, preserved in 5% formalin and transferred to laboratory for taxonomic analysis and generation of abundance. In the laboratory, each sample was washed with tap water over a 53 µm sieve to remove the preservative and then diluted to a suitable volume, depending on the concentration of organisms in each sample. Sub-samples of 2, 2, 5 and 10 mL were taken with a wide bore automatic pipette from a well agitated sample. The sub-sample series were performed to consider the more abundant organisms in 2, 2 mL series, and the rarer organisms in 2, 2, 5, 10 mL series. Each sub-sample was put into a counting chamber and examined under inverted microscope (Hund, Wetzlar, Germany) at X100 magnification for taxonomic determination, and X40 for counting and organism body measurements.

Method step description:

1. Collection of the zooplankton A conical plankton net (Nansen type; mesh size 60 µm; mouth diameter 0.25 m) was used to collect the zooplankton. It was towed vertically through the water column to have an integrated sample. Three hauls were taken per site and were combined to make a composite sample. Preserving the samples Samples were preserved in a sugar-formalin mixture. The sugar was to stop the ballooning of cladocerans for easy identification. Identification of zooplankton taxa In the laboratory, samples were washed using a sieve of 53 µm to remove the fixatives. Organisms were identified to the smallest taxonomic level possible using taxonomic keys (Sars, 1895, Pennak, 1953, Brooks, 1957, Rutner-Kolisko, 1974, Koste, 1978, Boxshall and Braide, 1991, Korinek, 1999). Density of organisms were calculated from the counts data, with reference to the sample net mouth diameter and water column depth at each sampling site.

Bibliographic Citations

1. Boxshall, G. A. & Braide, E. I. 1991. The freshwater cyclopoid copepods of Nigeria, with an illustrated key to all species. Bull. Br. Mus. Nat. Hist. (zool), 57, 185-212.
2. Brooks, J. L. 1957. The systematics of North American Daphnia. Memoirs of the connecticut academy of Arts and Sciences, 13, 1-18.
3. Fernando, C. H. 2002. A Guide to Tropical Freshwater Zooplankton. Identification, Ecology and Impact on Fisheries, Leiden, The Netherlands, Backhuys Publishers.
4. Korinek, V. 1999. A guide to limnetic species of Cladocera of African inland waters (Crustacea, Branchiopoda). The International Association of Theoretical and Applied Limnology. SIL.
5. Koste, W. 1978. Rotatoria. Die Radertiere Mitteleuropas. Ein Bestimmungwerk, begrundet vo Max Voig. Uberrordnung Monogononta. Gebruder Borntraeger, Berlin, Stuttgart.
6. Pennak, R. W. 1953. Fresh-water invertebrates of the United States, New York, John Wiley & Sons.
7. Rutner-Kolisko, A. 1974. Planktonic rotifers: Biology and taxonomy, Biological Station Lunz of the Austrian Academy of Science. E. Schweizerbart’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung.
8. Sars, G. O. 1895. An account of the Crustacea of Norway, Christiania and Copenhagen Alb. Cammermeyer Forlag

Additional Metadata