Title: Distribution characteristics of phytoplankton and their relationship with environmental factors in Zhejiang coastal waters from 2003 to 2004
Abstract: Phytoplankton is the most important producer of marine organic matter and starter of the food web of marine organisms.It plays an important role in marine ecosystem.Therefore its ecological features are necessary index for the assessment of water environment quality and of certain significance to indicate the environment status.In this study,the species composition,abundance distribution,dominant species and the community structure of the phytoplankton and its relationship to the environmental factors were studied with the samples collected in the summer of 2003 and the summer and autumn of 2004 during spring tide and neap tide at 37 stations along 10 m isobath(hereafter as inside sea area) and 50 m isobath(near the fishing forbidden line,hereafter as outside sea area) and a red tide species,Nactiluca scientillans was monitored.As a result 7 phyla,88 genera and 326 species of phytoplankton,including 59 genera,238 species of Diatom,and 20 genera,76 species of Pyrrophyta were identified,in which 6 phyla 73 genera and 279 species including 52 genera 218 species of Diatun and 13 genera 50 species of Pyrrophyta from the inside sea area and 7 phyla 80 genera and 285 species including 52 genera 204 species of Diatum and 20 genera 72 species of Pyrrophyta from the outside sea area.The range of the cell abundance was generally from 1.0×104 cells/dm3 to 1.0×105 cells/dm3 with the highest of 1.0×106 cells/dm3.The mean cell abundance of the phytoplankton was(24.65±5.99)×104 cells/dm3 during spring tide,and(70.37±41.95)× 104 cells/dm3 during neap tide for the inside sea area,and(55.64±11.03)× 104 cells/dm3 and(16.12±4.21)× 104 cells/dm3 for the outside sea area.The total amount of the phytoplankton at spring tide was higher than that at neap tide in the south of the inside sea area.But with the increase of the latitude,the variation tendency was opposite.The plane distribution followed the patchy distribution pattern evidently.In outside sea area,the total amount of the phytoplankton at spring tide was also higher than that at neap tide.The plane distribution was relatively even.The abundance of Noctiluca scintillans was high in the north and in the inside sea area and low in the south and in the outside sea area. The dominant species of the phytoplankton in Zhejiang coastal waters were Skeletonema costatum,Leptocylindrus danicus,Chaetoceros compressus,Chaetoceros curvisetus,Chaetoceros distans,Chaetoceros lorenzianus,Pseudo-nitzschia pungens.And the most dominant species was Skeletonema costatum.According to the distribution characteristics of the phytoplankton,it might be divided into five ecological groups,that is,temperate and subtropical species,neritic eurytropic species,oceanic eurytropic species,warm-water species,and torrid ocean species,in which neritic eurytropic species,oceanic eurytropic species and warm-water species were the main species in this area.In the inside sea area the phytoplankton community structure at spring tide was better than that at neap tide,while that in the outside sea area was more stable than that in the inside sea area. Besides,the correlation test shows that the distribution of phytoplankton was closely related to the tides in the inside sea area while more to the nutrients in the outside sea area.In both areas,there were no significant correction between the distribution of phytoplankton and the water temperature.Compared with the water temperature,both the salinity and nutrients had more direct and indirect effects on the phytoplankton.
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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