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Tracing the settlement region of massive floating green algae in the Yellow Sea

  • Ecology
  • Published:
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Abstract

Outbreaks of large-scale green tides formed by Ulva prolifera in the Yellow Sea (YS) cause heavy ecological damages and huge economic losses. However, the ecological consequences of green tides remain poorly understood due to the lack of knowledge on the settlement region of massive green algae floating in the YS. In this study, we established a method to trace the settlement region of floating green algae, using 28-isofucosterol preserved in sediment as the specific biomarker for green algae. Sterols including 28-isofucosterol in surface sediment samples collected during an investigation in the YS and the Bohai Sea (BS) in August 2015 were analyzed using gas chromatography coupled with a mass spectrometer (GC-MS). Based on the content of 28-isofucosterol in sediment samples, the potential settlement region of floating green algae was identified in the sea area southeast to the Shandong Peninsula around the sampling site H06 (122.66°E, 36.00°N). This paper presents a first result on the settlement region of floating green algae in the YS for providing a solid basis to elucidate the ecological consequences of green tides in the area.

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7 Acknowledgement

The sampling for this study is supported by the open cruise organized by NSFC. We sincerely thank Dr. PENG Quancai and LI Chen for the help in sample analysis and Dr. CHEN Xue for collecting sediment samples.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Marine Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Huixia Geng, Rencheng Yu, Qingchun Zhang, Tian Yan, Fanzhou Kong & Mingjiang Zhou

  2. Laboratory for Marine Ecology and Environmental Science, Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao), Qingdao, 266237, China

    Huixia Geng, Rencheng Yu, Qingchun Zhang, Tian Yan & Fanzhou Kong

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Rencheng Yu

  4. Center for Ocean Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Huixia Geng, Rencheng Yu, Qingchun Zhang, Tian Yan & Fanzhou Kong

Authors
  1. Huixia Geng
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  2. Rencheng Yu
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  3. Qingchun Zhang
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  4. Tian Yan
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  5. Fanzhou Kong
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  6. Mingjiang Zhou
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rencheng Yu.

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6 Dada Availability Statement

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41676106), the Program of the Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (No. 2016ASKJ02), the Marine S&T Fund of Shandong Province for Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao) (No. 2018SDKJ0504), the Qingdao Postdoctoral Research Project, the Marine Ecology and Environmental Science Function Laboratory Youth Talent Cultivation Project of Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (No. LMEES-YTSP-2018-01-02), and the project jointly supported by Shandong Province and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (No. U1606404)

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Geng, H., Yu, R., Zhang, Q. et al. Tracing the settlement region of massive floating green algae in the Yellow Sea. J. Ocean. Limnol. 37, 1555–1565 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-019-8348-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-019-8348-x

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