Phytoplankton assemblage in relation to physical and chemical characteristics of water in Al-Auda marsh of Maysan province southern Iraq was assessed from November 2012 to July 2013. Six sampling sites were chosen to examine all phytoplankton species in the study area. A total of 246 species and seventy-five genera have been recognized belonging to twelve phytoplankton classes as follows: Bacillariophyceae (106 taxa), Chlorophyceae (34 taxa), Euglenophyceae (29 taxa), Cyanophyceae (29 taxa), Conjugatophyceae (19 taxa), Mediophyceae (10 taxa), Cryptophyceas (5 taxa), Coscinodiscophyceae (4 taxa), Chrysophyceae (4 taxa), Dinophyceae (3 taxa), Trebouxiophyceae (2 taxa) whereas Compsopogonophyceae recorded only (one taxon).The finding showed class Bacillariophyceae dominated with (43.09%), followed by Chlorophyceae of (13.82%), then (11.79%) for each of Cyanophycean and Euglenophyceae. Mean ± standard deviation for water temperature was ranged between (14.3±1.6°C) during winter to (35.6±1.81°C) during summer, electrical Conductivity (2020±186μ.s/cm) during autumn to (6390±875μ.s/cm) during summer, total Phosphate 0.01±0.0 µg/l during winter to 0.3±0.08 µg/l during spring, and total nitrogen varied from 1.8±0.8 µg/l during winter to 6.9±0.5 µg/l during autumn. Seasonal distribution indicated that phytoplankton flourished predominantly during the summer and spring. The diversity index (H) recorded the highest value in spring and lowest value in autumn, Richness (D) and Evenness (E) indices achieved the highest values in spring, the lowest values in autumn. The Jaccard index (Ss%) recorded the highest similarity between autumn and winter, the lowest similarity was between autumn and spring. The results revealed Al-Auda marsh is mesotrophic according to phytoplankton composition.
The Red Palm Weevil (RPW), Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier, 1790) is a devastating invasive pest of palm trees, invading the Iraqi date palm tree in 2015 for the first time in Safwan county, Basrah province. The Red Palm weevil has been categorized as a quarantine pest of date palm trees worldwide. In this study, a five years monitoring program has been achieved by scouting the invasive pest RPW population in Safwan county by using visual sampling and Pheromone baited traps.
The results indicated that the number of infested palms, increased from 12 trees in 2015 to 111 in 16 orchards in 2016. The number of the infested palms was minimized to 3 trees in the county in 2019 due to the management protocol of the Ministry of Agriculture
Dust storms are typical in arid and semi-arid regions such as the Middle East; the frequency and severity of dust storms have grown dramatically in Iraq in recent years. This paper identifies the dust storm sources in Iraq using remotely sensed data from Meteosat-spinning enhanced visible and infrared imager (SEVIRI) bands. Extracted combined satellite images and simulated frontal dust storm trajectories, using the Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model, are used to identify the most influential sources in the Middle East and Iraq. Out of 132 dust storms in Iraq during 2020–2023, the most frequent occurred in the spring and summer. A dust source frequency percentage map (DSFPM) is generated using ArcGIS so
... Show MoreThe ground pearls, Porphyrophora tritici (Bod.) is a new insect pest on wheat recorded for
the first time from Mousl Province, North of Iraq.
The ciliate species isolated from midgut and hindgut of Rough-tailed gecko Cyrtopodion scabrum (Heyden, 1827), identified as Nyctotherus hardwickii was collected from many regions of Baghdad, Iraq. The current study deals with a description and comparison of the morphology and morphometric characters of this species for the first time in Iraq.
Collapsing building structures during recent earthquakes, especially in Northern and Eastern Kurdistan, including the 2003 earthquake in Cewlig; the 2011 earthquake in Van; and the 2017 earthquake near Halabja province, has raised several concerns about the safety of pre-seismic code buildings and emergency facilities in Erbil city. The seismic vulnerability assessment of the hospital buildings as emergency facilities is one of the necessities which have a critical role in the recovery period following earthquakes. This research aims to study in detail and to extend the present knowledge about the seismic vulnerability of the Rizgary public hospital building in Erbil city, which was constructed before releasing the seism
... Show MoreThe present work is qualitative descriptive. It aims to examine the idiosyncratic schema when deciphering the selected violence-based panel from Nasser Ibrahim’s caricatures. The researchers accordingly adopted part of Sharifian’s (2011) Cultural Schema model, particularly that part that is concerned with the examining the micro/idiosyncratic level of understanding. The study has revealed that the participants have not only differed among themselves regarding the way a figure is being denotatively conceptualized, they also highlighted different exact conceptualizations for the same figure, such as: using various adjectives that reflect various levels of intensity, emphasizing the behavioral aspect or the appearance of the figure
... Show MoreAbstract Iraq has an important place in the regional and international balance, and the competition among countries has increased in rapprochement with Iraq, not only for its geography or its privileged location, but because it has many other components that make regional and international countries want to strengthen their relations with it (Regional and international powers). In addition to that, Iraq has become increasingly important for these international and regional powers after its victory over the terrorist organization (ISIS), which proved an important fact that Iraq represents the most important pillars in the international balance.
A new species of the family Carabidae, subfamily Harpalinae was introdIle7: (1 or a Acupalpus mesopota¬micus on the basis external morphology and male genctalia. The specimens were compared with a world collection of Acupalptis of the British Museum (N. H.) Holotype was kept at the Iraq Natural History Museum. Other 12 specimens were kept in Iraq Natural History Museum.