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Phytoplankton species composition of four ecological provinces in Yellow Sea, China

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Abstract

The ecological province based on phytoplankton species composition is important to understanding the interplay between environmental parameters and phytoplankton species composition. The aim of this study was to establish phytoplankton species composition ecological pattern thus elucidate the relationship between environmental factors and the phytoplankton species composition in the ecological provinces. Phytoplankton samples were collected from 31 stations in Yellow Sea (121.00°–125.00°E, 32.00°–39.22°N) in November 2014. The samples were enumerated and identified with the Utermöhl method under an optical inverted microscope-AE2000 with magnifications of 200 × or 400 ×. In the present study, a total of 141 taxa belonging to 60 genera of 4 phyla of phytoplankton were identified, among them 101 species of 45 genera were Bacillariophyta, 36 species of 11 genera were Dinophyta, 3 species of 3 genera were Chrysophyta and 1 species of 1 genera was Chlorophyta. The study area was divided into 4 ecological provinces according to an unsupervised cluster algorithm applied to the phytoplankton biomass. A T-S (Temperature-Salinity) scatter diagram depicted with data of water temperature and salinity defined by environmental provinces matched well with the ecological provinces. The results of Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) indicated that the phytoplankton species composition was mainly correlated with temperature, salinity and silicate concentration in the studied area. A method of establishing ecological provinces is useful to further understanding the environmental effects on the marine phytoplankton species composition and the consequent marine biogeochemistry.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41676112 and 41176136), the Key Project of Natural Science Foundation for Tianjin (No. 17JCZDJC40000), the University Innovation Team Training Program for Tianjin (TD12-5003) and the Program for Changjiang Scholars to Jun Sun, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 4130 61184) to Yuanyuan Feng. The authors are grateful to Prof. Houjie Wang for providing the data of temperature and salinity, and also thank the crew and captain of the R/V Dongfanghong 2 for their assistance in sample collection during the cruise supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. NORC2014).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Marine Resources and Chemistry, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin, 300457, P. R. China

    Xiaoqian Li, Yuanyuan Feng, Xiaoyun Leng, Haijiao Liu & Jun Sun

  2. College of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin, 300457, P. R. China

    Xiaoqian Li, Yuanyuan Feng, Xiaoyun Leng, Haijiao Liu & Jun Sun

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  1. Xiaoqian Li
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Correspondence to Jun Sun.

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Li, X., Feng, Y., Leng, X. et al. Phytoplankton species composition of four ecological provinces in Yellow Sea, China. J. Ocean Univ. China 16, 1115–1125 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11802-017-3270-3

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