Assessment Of Water Quality And Zooplankton Community Of Ossah River, Umuahia, Abia State.

ABSTRACT

Zooplankton (Greek: Zoo = Animal; Plankton = wandering). Zooplankton is composed of microscopic animals which consist of several representatives, majorly all taxa particularly the invertebrates (Gosswami, 2004). Zooplankton can be classified as herbivorous and carnivorous, based on their nature of feeding and in turn makes up an important food item to other aquatic animals in the higher trophic level (Heven, 2002). They can also be classified based on their lifestyle and size; zooplankton that spend their entire lives as planktons known as Holoplanktons. Others such as the larval stages of many benthic invertebrates only spend parts of their entire lives as plankton