I work on assessment of Pond ecosystem through the Phytoplanktonic diversity. I would be highly obliged if someone could help me with this calculation. I have the cell count no. being recorded from major districts of Tamil Nadu. Collaborative works are also welcomed.
If you have a mean (at least triplicated) cell count of 20/0.5 ml then you simply need to extraoplate that to a unit volume of the water you have sampled. Then it becomes 4000/L and by identifying various individuals belonging to different species under varied genera you would get a cumulative number per litre of water which would be the population density of algae of a certain size class per litre of the water which yoiu had sampled.
n/Nx100=Relative abundance of the species in a population where n is the recorded number of individuals of the species and N is the total number of individuals within a population.
Had you sampled the water body all year round then you would have at the very least 3-4 batches of representative samples grouped by the seasons or at most you'll have 12 samples pertaining to the 12 months. Suppose you have encountered a species 5 times within 12 months, then its relative frequency of occurrence is 5/12=41.6667%.
I hope this helps you in your research.
Best wishes,
Dr. Abhishek Mukherjee
Frequency is how often a species occurs in a district, cell density requires cell count per volume of water, and abundance is the number of species at a district divided by the total possible number of species across all districts
Abhishek Mukherjee Thank you so much. I clearly get your point and yes I have collected samples randomly across ponds for 3 months post-monsoon. Will get back to you if I have further clarifications on the same. Thanks again