Aquatic plants as bioindicator for water pollution / Nur Athirah Mazlan

Water is one of the important substance that is needed by living organisms.
Therefore, water pollution should be prevented. Bioindicator is consider as an
animal or plants which accumulate contaminants in their tissue and organs from
their surroundings. The objectives of this study were to determine the quality of
water sample based on pH, DO and BOD, to investigate the potential of aquatic
plants as bioindicator for water pollution and to determine the cytotoxicity effect of
selected plants. The water samples were collected from three different rivers nearby
Jengka's Town. Both aquatic plants were collected from the pond in UiTM. The
DO values were determined first to get the BOD values for water quality
determination. The morphology of plants was measured based on qualitative and
quantitative parameter. For cytology study, histology technique was used to
determine the cytotoxicity effect of selected aquatic plants in polluted water
samples. Limnocahris flava and Ipomea aquatica were aquatic plants used in this
study. The result showed water sample from Jengka's River had higher BOD value
which was 2.156 mg/L. For the pH, Jengka's River also got higher value which
indicate less acidity. The morphology of Limnocharis flava and Ipomea aquatica
does showed some changes in term of stem and root diameter, leaves counting and
colour of leaves and roots, and of. The number of chromosome for Limnocharis
flava for treatment A was 2(n) = 12 and treatment C was 2(n) =20. For Ipomea
aquatica, treatment B and C, the number of chromosome were 2(n) =38 and 2(n)
= 14 respectively. The number of chromosome differ to theory due to the
composition in the water treatment. As conclusion, Limnocharis jlava showed
excellent potential compared to Ipomea aquatica as a bioindicator for water
pollution.