Preliminary Study of Schooling Behavior of Poecilia Reticulata in the Vavuniya Town Tank water Samples Subjected to Oil and Grease Pollution

Abstract

The increase of oil and grease (O&G) pollution discharge into the Vavuniya town tank By means of automobile service station heavily affecting the behaviour and biology of fish. The fishermen deem that the discharge of O&G substances plays more significant role in reducing the market ability especially in the polluted location-L than the non-polluted location-L 2 of the Vavuniya tank where water samples were collected for this study. After determining BOD, polluted (L]) and non-polluted (L2) locations were identified. Thus, this research as a preliminary study seeks to assess the feasibilities of proposing ornamental fisheries as supplementary source of income to such community to safeguard their livelihoods. Taking the Poecilia reticula as the test organism, the adaptabilities were observed via the study of two phases of schooling behavior (ST1, ST2). The time taken for the relative attractiveness-ST1 of the individual and that particular Individual fish spent with its school-ST2 were measured with replicates and analyzed statistically. There is a significant difference (p<0.05) between the schooling behaviour exhibited by the test organism in L1 with control and there is no significant difference (p>0.05) between L2 with control. Once this significant relationship was observed in between the schooling behavior vs. O&G content of L], the correlation between O&G vs. ST1 and ST2 were examined where the Pearson correlation r is+0.437, -0.135 respectively. From this result it can be argued that the tank water quality of L1 highly influences on the two phases of the schooling behavior of fish, may be due to the Oil and grease discharge. However, L2 seems to be less polluted, does not have much influence on the schooling behavior of the fish the normal behavior of fish will be maintained if the fish is cultured in such location, justifying that the ornamental fisheries can be established in the L2 to enhance the revenue of fishing community.