Blue algae (Cyanobacteria), green algae and brown algae were
the dominant algae identified by chlorophyll content(Fig. 5a and b).
The biomass of these three algal groups rapidly declined over time
with brown algae becoming the main component of the periphyton
in the later stages (from 102 to 240 h) in the presence of heavy
metal contamination. In the control treatment, green and brown
algae were the dominant species after 18 h