Aquatic organisms and their uses in biomonitoring or as bioindicators.

1. Evaluation of different organisms is needed as Nigeria's aquatic environment potentially provides cheap but robust and reliable indicators of environmental perturbations from diverse biological models such fish species, shrimps crabs and benthic macroinvertebrates, with requisite initial attributes. However, evaluations are still at infancy. Developmetal instability in the following fish species is being investigated Chrysicthys nigrodigitatus, Parachanna africanus, Sarotherodon melanotheron,Clarias gariepinus and Labeo ogunensis. Shell-fishes are also being considered for similar studies.
2. Developmental changes in fertilized eggs (pre-hatching) of Clarias gariepinus exposed to pollutants in the laboratory is also being studied, there are proposals to extend the study to include developmental stages of Parachanna sp. and Aphyosemion sp.
3. Plankton dynamics and response to pollutants, implication for defense mechanisms in desmids and diatoms is also ongoing. Information of plankton dynamics from Ologe lagoon, R. Owo and R.Ogun were collected.
4. Radiation levels in natural population of fish species from Nigerian aquatic sytems has also commenced with initial study of Chrysicthys nigrodigitatus, Schilbe sp. and Tilapia sp. from Ikpoba river almost completed in collaboration with Nnamdi Jibiri (Department of Physics, University of Ibadan, Nigeria). We are also proposing extension of the study to cover mostly coastal water systems in Nigeria.

Ethnozoology.

Evaluating Nigerian indigenous knowledge with a view of documenting and making the information available in simple contemporary scientific language has concentrated on plant and terrestrial animals to exclusion of aquatic animals and plant. I have been collecting information on the identification and utilization of fin-fishes in healing practices of people of Yòrùbá extraction from Southwest Nigeria. Presently, the methods of evaluating the use of fin-fishes in treating fertility related ailments and improvement of spiritual acuity in humans is being developed, preliminary results are so far promising.