The Distribution of Epilitic Diatoms in the Turkish Part of the Tigris-Euphrates River Basin

Tigris and Euphrates rivers are transboundary rivers originated in Southeastern Anatolia region of Turkey and flow into Persian Gulf. These two river systems are one of the major drainage basins in southwestern Asia. Benthic diatoms are well environmental indicators in biomonitoring studies because of reacting rapidly to disturbance of water, e.g., physicochemical conditions of water or to pollution-affected catchment area. The aim of the present study is to reveal the distribution of diatoms in Tigris-Euphrates river catchment. For this purpose, diatom samples, which were collected from 20 different sampling locations in 2014, were investigated in the study. As a result, a total of 153 epilitic diatoms were identified and 32 of them were new record for Turksh Freshwater Diatom Flora.