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Insights into assessing environmental quality status using potential surrogates of biofilm-dwelling ciliate fauna in coastal waters

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Abstract

To determine potential surrogates of biofilm-dwelling ciliate fauna for assessing water quality, a dataset of coastal waters of the Yellow Sea was studied. Samples were collected monthly at a depth of 1 m from four sampling stations during a 1-year cycle (August 2011–July 2012), northern China. The ciliate communities at low taxonomic resolutions up to family level were significantly correlated with the full ciliate fauna at species-level resolution and represented a significant spatial variation in relation to the environmental changes. The presence/absence resolutions up to genus level maintained sufficient information of the ciliate species-abundance matrix. The vagile and sessile ciliate assemblages were significantly correlated with the full ciliate communities but only the latter maintained sufficient information with a significant spatial variation in response to the environmental stress. Correlation analyses showed that the taxon richness indices of potential surrogates at genus- and family-level resolutions can explain >95 % of the variance in that of the full species pool. Thus, it is suggested that the taxonomic resolutions up to family level may be a robust time-efficient surrogate of whole periphytic ciliate communities for assessing water quality status and would allow improving sampling strategies of large spatial scale monitoring programs, using biofilm-dwelling ciliates, in coastal waters.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41076089 and 31071898) and Scholarship Award for Excellent Doctoral Student granted by Chinese Ministry of Education. Special thanks are due to Dr. X. Fan, Dr. J. Jiang, and Dr. X. Chen, Laboratory of Protozoology, Institute of Evolution and Marine Biodiversity, Ocean University of China, China, for their help with sampling and sample processing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Evolution and Marine Biodiversity, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266003, China

    Wei Zhang, Yuanyuan Liu, Yuping Xu & Henglong Xu

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  1. Wei Zhang
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  2. Yuanyuan Liu
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  3. Yuping Xu
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  4. Henglong Xu
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Correspondence to Henglong Xu.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Zhang, W., Liu, Y., Xu, Y. et al. Insights into assessing environmental quality status using potential surrogates of biofilm-dwelling ciliate fauna in coastal waters. Environ Sci Pollut Res 22, 1389–1398 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-3436-0

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