[Phytoplankton assemblages and their relation to environmental factors by multivariate statistic analysis in Bohai...

A detailed field survey of hydrological, chemical and biological resources was conducted in the Bohai Bay in spring and summer 2007. The distributions of phytoplankton and their relations to environmental factors were investigated with multivariate analysis techniques. Totally 17 and 23 taxa were identified in spring and summer, respectively. The abundance of phytoplankton in spring was 115 x 10(4) cells x m(-3), which was significantly higher than that in summer (3.1 x 10(4) cells x m(-3)). Characteristics of phytoplankton assemblages in the two seasons were identified using principal component analysis (PCA), while redundancy analysis (RDA) was used to examine the environmental variables that may explain the patterns of variation of the phytoplankton community. Based on PCA results, in the spring, the phytoplankton was mainly distributed in the center and northern water zone, where the nitrate nitrogen concentration was higher. However, in summer, phytoplankton was found distributed in all zones of Bohai Bay, while the dominant species was mainly distributed in the estuary. RDA indicated that the key environmental factors that influenced phytoplankton assemblages in the spring were nitrate nitrogen (NO3(-) -N), nitrite nitrogen (NO2(-) -N) and soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP), while ammonium nitrogen (NH4(+) -N) and water temperature (WT) played key roles in summer.