Effect of Aquatic Communities’ Integrity on Water Environment

An aquatic community was built artificially to explore its self-maintenance and resilience capability. Responses of key water environmental indicators to diversified varieties and densities of the aquatic community were investigated. Results show that the artificial aquatic system is efficient in improving water quality with increasing transparency and decreasing permanganate index (COD _Mn), chlorophyll-a, densities of zooplankter and phytoplankton, while no influences on TN (total nitrogen) and TP (total phosphorus) in the tested water were observed. Stocking density of fish and mussel impacted the efficiency of the artificial aquatic community on its water quality improving capacity with lower density (fish at 25.0g/m ³ and mussel at 1.0g/L), taking advantage over higher density (fish at 50.0g/m ³ and mussel at 2.0g/L). Myriophyllum spicatum and ceratophyllum demersum contributed to enhance the efficiency of the fish-mussel system in improving water quality.