Studies on the Range of Plankton in River Benue, North Central, Nigeria, Western Africa

Studies on range of plankton (phytoplankton and zooplankton) in River Benue North Central Nigeria Western Africa was carried out for 5weeks between August and October. Four sampling sites were selected based on the impact of human activities on the river biota, and denoted as A, B, C, D. Sampling site A is the outlet of Benue Brewery, sampling site B under new bridge located at the North bank, sampling site C is at the downstream of Wadata market and site D is at the downstream of the North bank old bridge. The pour through method was used for collecting plankton and standard identification keys were used to identify the planktons. Two major types of plankton were identified; phytoplankton and zooplankton. In increasing dominance phytoplankton have 7 divisions: Chlorophyta 49.32% > Bacilliarophyta 2.783% > cyanophyta 0.18% > Dinophyta 62% > Euglenophyta 1.8% > Chrysophyta 0.185% > Rodophyta0.09% with the total of 19 species while zooplankton in an increasing dominance have 5 divisions: Rotifera 52.75% > cladocera 31.41% > copeda 6.84% > ostracoda 5.40% and > decapoda 3.6% with a total of 16 species. This study showed abundant diversity in the range of plankton in river Benue and the implications of this to the state of the river visavis activities of humans along the banks and inside the river is discussed.