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First record of a large-scale bloom-causing species Nannochloropsis granulata (Monodopsidaceae, Eustigmatophyceae) in China Sea waters

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Abstract

Nannochloropsis is an ubiquitous genus, found in diverse aquatic environments including open ocean as well as fresh and brackish water. Recently, large-scale blooms occurred frequently along eutrophic coastal zone from the Bohai Sea to the northern Yellow Sea in China. The cell density reached 109 to 1010cells per liter during a bloom near Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province. The bloom forming species, a yellow–green microalgae was successfully isolated and cultivated in the laboratory. Microscopic observation indicated that the cells contained simple morphological characteristics with a diameter about 2 μm. Pigment analyses confirmed that the pigment composition of the newly isolated strain BDH02 was similar to that of Nannochloropsis granulata. Phylogenetic analyses of 18S rRNA gene, ITS, and rbcL gene indicated that the strain was closely related to N. granulata. This is the first record of a bloom caused by N. granulata in China.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank DrAijun Zhang at the North China Sea Branch of The State Oceanic Administration for her help on coordination of cruise and samplings. This study was supported by the Ocean Public Welfare Scientific Research Project (201005015-1), National Basic Research Program of China (No.2011CB409804), and Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (No. NCET-12-1065), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41176136 and 41276124), and Key Project of Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin (No.12JCZDJC30100) to Jun Sun.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Zhang, X., Kan, J., Wang, J. et al. First record of a large-scale bloom-causing species Nannochloropsis granulata (Monodopsidaceae, Eustigmatophyceae) in China Sea waters. Ecotoxicology 24, 1430–1441 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-015-1466-0

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