Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
MICROPHYTOBENTHOS DIVERSITY FROM MUDFLATS ALONG THE SAVANNAH RIVER ESTUARY Jelena Andrejic1,2, Ellen France1, and Kalina M. Manoylov1 1 Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Georgia College and State University, Milledgeville, Georgia 31061 USA 2 Nuclear Sciences "Vinca", Laboratory for Material Sciences, 11000 Belgrade, SERBIA Estuaries are known to have a diverse combination of freshwater, marine, and brackish organisms. The microphytobenthos is composed of photosynthetic eukaryotes and cyanobacteria with largely unknown life history and composition. Samples from the Savannah River mudflats were collected at low and high tide, 23 kilometers from the Savannah port at a USGS monitoring site. An attempt to culture taxa from the community was performed for all algae, with the goal of developing a molecular and morphologic catalogue for each taxon. In addition, cleaned diatoms were analyzed following standard methods. Scanning and light microscope data were analyzed, and morphometric measurements for each taxon were collected. 320 algal species were documented and are currently in different stages of description, culture development or sequencing. The algal community is dominated by planktonic marine diatoms like Cymatoseira belgica and freshwater riverine diatoms from the genera Navicula, Luticola, and Cyclotella. Many new taxa described were marine or brackish. The results from this research will serve as a baseline for changes in the community composition of primary producers from the Savanna river mudflats after the deepening of the Savannah Port.