ARTEMIA RESOURCES IN IRAN

Artemia is reported from many geographical areas from Iran, but except for Artemia urmiana there are not enough documentations about other populations of Artemia.

Urmia lake with about 5500 km² is known as one of the largest natural biotopes of Artemia in the world. Artemia was reported from Urmia lake by Günter in 1890 and named as Artemia urmiana by Clark and Bowen in 1976. There has been much of contradiction about the nature of Artemia in Urmia lake, reported as bisexual by Clark and Bowen followed by many others and as parthenogenetic by Barigozi. Probable co-existence of bisexual and parthenogenetic populations in the lake had been guessed by P. Sorgeloos (1990) and R.A. Brown (1991). Our studies prove that both the populations exist in Urmia lake with full dominance of bisexual Artemia urmiana.

The lagoons around the lake with initial salinity of about 15 ppt at the beginning of the season contain parthenogenetic populations where males are observed very rarely.

Existence of Artemia is also reported from 3 different lakes namely Maharlu lake, Bakhtegan lake and Tashk lake in Fars Province, situated in central Iran. The Artemia populations found in these lakes are all parthenogenetic populations. Incheh lake and Shor gul in Golestan province are two natural biotopes of Artemia in the north-east of Iran situated close to each other. In these lakes we also found parthenogenetic populations of Artemia.

Other resources of Artemia parthenogenetica in Iran are Salt lake of Qom in Qom, Varmal lagoon at Sistan and Baluchestan and Nough lake at Yazd. None of the last 5 biotopes have economic importance.

(by N. Agh, P. Sorgeloos, T. Abatzopoulos, S.M. Razavi Rouhani, G.V. Lofti, e-mail: n.agh@mail.urmia.ac.ir, in Hamshahri, Jun 18, 2001)

home