A preliminary investigation of the epizooitic algae present on Lavigeria snails in the littoral region of Lake Tanganyika

Benthic algae in the littoral region of Lake Tanganyika serve as chemical modulators transforming inorganic chemicals into organic forms, represent habitats for other organisms, provide food for snails and cichlid fish and are important in stabilizing the substrata of community existence. These algae represent an evolutionary diverse group of photoautotrophic organisms that contain chlorophyll a and possess unicellular reproduction. There is high algal species richness in Lake Tanganyika although endemicity is not great. The total number of algal taxa is 927, belonging to 184 genera (Patterson, 1998). These algal groups are mostly diatoms, green and blue-green algae. Preliminary microscopic analysis has shown that a diverse community of organisms exists on the shells of snails. Since the nature of the substratum strongly influences benthic algal communities (Lowe and Pan, 1996) I thought it would be interesting to analyze the epizooitic algae present on Lavigeria snails.