Diversity of Cyanobacterial Flora at Nelliyampathy, Kerala

Cyanobacteria are microscopic organisms coming under the class Cyanophyceae. They are prokaryotic and diazotrophic organisms which can perform both photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation. Cyanobacteria consists about 2000 species coming under 150 genera and 5 orders. Among these species, they show variation in size and shape. Sufficient exploration of Cyanobacteria in order to satisfy the economic importance of them has not been conducted yet. Nelliyampathy is a hill station situated near Nenmara, Palakkad District. The study area ranges from 467 m to 1572 m and meets the coordinates 10031.47`N and 76041.02`E. We collected 15 species of Cyanobacteria coming under 4 families. This includes unicellular genus like Chroococcus, Aphanocapsa, Aphanothece, Gloeocapsa, Gloeothece and filamentous genus like Nostoc, Scytonema, Calothrix and Tolypothrix. Among this Scytonema, Calothrix and Tolypothrix are filamentous types of Cyanobacteria which show false branching. The major economic importance of Cyanobacteria is that it can be used as bio fertilizer in agriculture fields. The filamentous forms of Cyanobacteria we collected from the study area possess heterocyst so they can fix atmospheric nitrogen. This property of Cyanobacteria could be further studied and used for the preparation of bio fertilizer. Our study aims at the exploration of Cyanobacterial diversity of Nelliyampathy Ghats and near reservoirs.