Freshwater mussels are a guild of stationary, suspended-feeding species; they perform significant ecological functions like nitrogen cycling, bioturbation that gives oxygen and habitat that other creatures need to survive, and increasing water clearance by filtration. Knowledge of the freshwater mussel Unio tigridis Bourguignat, 1852, distribution, and molecular study in Iraq was inadequate. In the current study, this species of freshwater Mussels belonging to the family Unionidae was collected from different locations in the Greater Zab River, from April 2022 to November 2022. The average water temperature of the site was arranged between (17.8 to 36.1 C°). All previous studies in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq were based on morphological characters and the current study was the first report of Unio tigridis that was confirmed by molecular genetics and COI gene, analyzed phylogenetically using Maximum Likelihood and Maximum Parsimony Methods.
In this study, a total of 209 individuals of leeches were collected from Al-Hindyia River / Babil Province. 116 individuals were identified as Erpobdella octaculata (Linnaeus, 1758), 50 individuals as Erpobdella punctata (Leidy,1870) and 43 individuals as Hemiclepsis marginata (Müller, 1774). Four samples were collected monthly during a period from February to June 2018. Some physical and chemical water properties were also examined, including air and water temperature, potential of hydrogen pH, Electrical Conductivity EC, Total Dissolved Solid TDS, Dissolved Oxygen DO, and the Biological Oxygen Demand BOD₅. Air and water temperature were r
... Show MoreInvestigating the heavy metals in soil is important to the life of humans and living organisms. Diyala River Lower Reaches was chosen due to the changes in environmental characteristics that took place in recent years. Twelve sediment samples were collected from four different sites. The physical, and chemical properties and the concentrations of nine heavy metals were indicated. The results showed that the average concentrations of arsenic, copper, chromium, cobalt, iron, manganese, nickel, lead, and zinc are 8.5, 45.7, 538.5, 12.2, 5.07, 991.7, 183.5, 16.07, 136.5 ppm, respectively. They reflect contamination with arsenic, chromium, and nickel, while they are free of lead, and zinc contamination, according to the Environmental P
... Show MoreThe foreguts of a total of 515 fish of Chondrostoma regium (Heckel, 1843) (locally: Bala’aot Malloky) were studied. These fish were collected from Tigris River at Salah Al-Deen Province (between Al-Hagag & Yathrib) for 20 months between March and October of the next year. Detritus, plant in origin materials (19.6%, 23.0% & 24.9%); green and blue green algae, mostly Cladophora, Cosmarium and Merismpedia sp. (17.1%, 12.9% & 12.2%) and diatoms, mostly Diatoma, Chanathes, Amphora and Cyulbella sp. (16.9%, 8.8% & 8.2%) were the main food categories taken by these fishes according to occurrence (O%), volumetric methods (V%) and ranking index (R%). Debris (not part of the diet) took 45.3% of the studied fish foreguts by volume. Detritus was also
... Show MorePhlebotomus papatasi sand fly is the main vector of Zoonotic Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (ZCL) in Iraq. The aim of this study was to assess and predict the effects of climate change on the distribution of the cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) cases and the main vector presently and in the future. Data of the CL cases were collected for the period (2000-2018) in addition to sand fly (SF) abundance. Geographic information system, R studio and MaxEnt (Maximum entropy niche model) software were used for analysis and predict effect of (elevation, population, Bio1-19, and Bio28-35) on CL cases distribution and SF occurrence. HadGEM2-ES model with two climate change scenarios, RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 were used for future projections 2050. The results showed th
... Show MoreIn this study water quality was indicated in terms of Water Quality Index that was determined through summarizing multiple parameters of water test results. This index offers a useful representation of the overall quality of water for public or any intended use as well as indicating pollution, water quality management and decision making. The application of Water Quality Index (WQI) with sixteen physicochemical water quality parameters was performed to evaluate the quality of Tigris River water for drinking usage. This was done by subjecting the water samples collected from eight stations in Baghdad city during the period 2004-2010 to comprehensive physicochemical analysis. The sixteen physicochemical parameters included: Turbidity,
... Show MoreIn this study water quality was indicated in terms of Water Quality Index that was determined through summarizing multiple parameters of water test results. This index offers a useful representation of the overall quality of water for public or any intended use as well as indicating pollution, water quality management and decision making. The application of Water Quality Index
(WQI) with sixteen physicochemical water quality parameters was performed to evaluate the quality of Tigris River water for drinking usage. This was done by subjecting the water samples collected from eight stations in Baghdad city during the period 2004-2010 to comprehensive physicochemical analysis. The sixteen physicochemical parameters included: Turbidity, A
In this study water quality was indicated in terms of Water Quality Index that was determined through summarizing multiple parameters of water test results. This index offers a useful representation of the overall quality of water for public or any intended 
use as well as indicating pollution, which are useful in water quality management and decision making. The application of Water Quality Index (WQI) with ten physicochemical water quality parameters was performed to evaluate the quality of Euphrates River water for drinking usage. This was done by subjecting the water samples collected from seven stations within Al-Anbar province during the period 2004-2010 to comprehensive physicochemical analysis. The ten physicochemical paramete
In this study water quality was indicated in terms of Water Quality Index that was determined through summarizing multiple parameters of water test results. This index offers a useful representation of the overall quality of water for public or any intended use as well as indicating pollution, which are useful in water quality management and decision making. The application of Water Quality Index (WQI) with ten physicochemical water quality parameters was performed to evaluate the quality of Euphrates River water for drinking usage. This was done by subjecting the water samples collected from seven stations within Al-Anbar province during the period 2004-2010 to comprehensive physicochemical analysis. The ten physicochemical parame
... Show More339 individuals , were sorted from 22 samples collected from three sites in Tigris River including , Al- Sarafiya district (S1), Al- Jaderiyah district (S2) and Al-Za'afaraniya district (S3), in addition to one site in the irrigation canal of the Al- Jaderiyah campus of the University of Baghdad (S4) , and in Al- Jeish canal(S5) east Baghdad. The sorting results revealed that the highest number of individuals of 102 was recorded at S4, whereas the lowest number of 24 individuals was recorded at S2. Regarding the sites, site S4 was the richest site with 30% of the total number represented 16 species, while each of S3 and S5 had 8 species only with 17.11% and 28.60% of the total individuals number respectively. The values of Jaccared Sim
... Show MoreThe study included general survey of some districts of Iraq in order to determinate new distribution areas for 33 species of the genus salvia L. ,new collections obtained , new locations for many species recorded. Observed specimens in most Iraqi herbaria were studies and identified. ,the flowering period were also studied