To investigate biomarker potentials and ecologi̇cal properties of filamentous algae in İslahi̇ye-Nurdaği (Gazi̇antep) regi̇on

To the best of our knowledge, any study about biochemical response of filamentous algae in the complex freshwater ecosystems has not been found in the literature. This study was designed to (i) explore biochemical response of filamentous algae and (ii) evaluate relationships between algae species and environmental variables the ecological preferences of species in different water bodies from November 2012 to December 2014, using multivariate approach in the West of Gaziantep. Multivariate analyses showed that heavy metals, nutrients, and water hardness were found as the important variables governing the temporal and spatial succession and biochemical compounds. Significant increase in MDA, H2O2, total thiol group, total phenolic compounds, and proline productions by filamentous algae and chlorosis phenomenon seemed to be an important strategy for alleviating environmental factors-induced oxidative stress as biomarkers. A total of 287 algal taxa were identified, most of them belong to Bacillariophyceae. The first two axes of CCA indicated 97.9 % of the correlation between epilithic algae and environmental variables and explained 15.7 % of cumulative variance of species data. According to the weighted average regression, most algae species showed unique ecological preferences for different environmental conditions, but especially commonly recorded algae taxa with cosmopolitan characteristics had relatively high tolerance and broad optimum ranges.