Relationships Between the Structure of Phytoplankton Community and Environmental Factors in Three Artificial Reef Areas of Laoshan Bay

Abstract:

In this study, we examined the phytoplankton community in the artificial reef areas of Laoshan Bay, and analyzed the relationships between phytoplankton and environment factors. Hence we provided references for the construction and evaluation of artificial reefs. The data and water samples were collected from four surveys in three artificial reef areas (Fengshan, Yangkou and Gangdong) of Laoshan Bay from March to December in 2011. By using Primer 5.0, we calculated the Shannon-Wiener, Margalef and Pielou of the phytoplankton community. We monitored the quarterly changes of phytop¬lankton community with cluster analysis, and applied Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) to explore the relationship between phytoplankton species and the environmental factors using Canoco 4.5. In four surveys we identified a total of 69 species with microscope. We found that the dominant species was Skeletonema costatum in March, September and December, and it was Navicula spp in June. The density of phytoplankton in December was 49.78×105 cell/m3, which was the lowest in this survey. The density of phytoplankton in September was up to 408.65×105 cell/m3, which was the highest among all months. Shannon-Wiener and Margalef varied from 2.034 to 2.83, and from 5.27 to 7.25 respectively, both of which reached the maximum in September and the minimum in December. The range of Pielou was 0.580.78, and it reached the maximum in June and the minimum in December. According to the cluster analysis, the degree of similarity between March and June was 43.02%, and it was up to 42.38% between September and December. The species-environment bi-plots were drawn based on the results of CCA. The results showed that phosphate, temperature and silicate were the most important factors that influenced the distribution of phytoplankton species.