Phytoplanktonic biogeography in the subtropical coastal waters, East China Sea along intensive anthropogenic stresses: roles of environmental versus spatial factors
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Abstract: Understanding the relative roles of local environmental effects and spatial effects on phytoplankton community is of essential importance to study the biogeography of them at regional scale. However, the determinants that driving the biogeography of phytoplankton communities in the coastal area of northern Zhejiang still remained unclear. We surveyed phytoplankton community compositions in water columns associated with environmental and spatial influences across five subzones that geographically covering this region over four seasons. Diatoms and dinoflagellates were recorded as the main dominant groups and Coscinodiscus oculs-iridis, Coscinodiscus jonesianus, and Skeletonema costatum, were identified as the major abundant species existing in all seasons. Spatially structured environmental conditions, rather than pure spatial or environmental factors, substantially shaped the biogeography of phytoplankton community, with the former mainly comprised of water temperature, dissolved oxygen, phosphate, pH, and salinity, and the latter referring to a non-negligible factor. This study was the first integrated research that combining environmental filtering with spatial factors in structuring phytoplankton communities at a complete tempo-spatial scale. Our results may facilitate to the further study of harmful algal blooms early-warning in this region.
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Figure 3. Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) plots of the whole community (a, d), the dominant community (b, e) and rare community (c, f) with one-way analysis of similarity (ANOSIM) visualize both seasonal (a−c) and spatial (d−f) dissimilarities. HZB: Hangzhou Bay; IC: island chain; SMB: Sanmen Bay; XSB: Xiangshan Bay; ZSI: Zhoushan Islands.
Figure 4. Heat maps illustrated Spearman’s rank correlations between seasonal dominant species and environmental parameters. WT: water temperature; Sal: salinity; TOC: total organic carbon; SPM: suspended particulate matter; TN: total nitrogen; COD: chemical oxygen demand; TP: total phosphorus; con. is the abbrevation of concentration.
Table 1. Distance-based multivariate linear model against seawater chemical variables of the whole community in all the seasons
Marginal tests Variable Pseudo-F P Percent variation explained WT 44.458 0.001 15.24 DO concentration 18.932 0.001 7.09 pH 12.062 0.001 4.64 SPM concentration 11.142 0.001 4.30 $\bf {PO_4^{3-}} $ concentration 6.077 0.001 2.39 COD 5.836 0.001 2.30 TP concentration 3.809 0.001 1.51 Sal 3.728 0.003 1.48 $\bf SiO_3^{2-} $ concentration 3.461 0.003 1.38 TN concentration 3.211 0.002 1.28 $\bf NO^-_3 $ concentration 3.048 0.005 1.21 $\bf NH_4^+ $ concentration 2.930 0.005 1.17 TOC concentration 1.715 0.069 0.69 $\bf NO_2^- $ concentration 1.481 0.136 0.59 Sequential tests Variable Pseudo-F P Cumulative variation explained WT 44.586 0.001 15.24 DO concentration 24.823 0.001 22.98 $\bf {PO_4^{3-}} $ concentration 6.138 0.001 24.85 Sal 3.544 0.001 25.93 $\bf SiO_3^{2-} $ concentration 2.735 0.002 26.75 $\bf NO^-_3 $ concentration 2.565 0.003 27.51 TN concentration 3.077 0.001 28.42 $\bf NH_4^+ $ concentration 2.529 0.007 29.16 pH 2.389 0.009 29.86 TOC concentration 2.258 0.015 30.52 COD 2.075 0.022 31.12 TP concentration 1.805 0.055 31.64 SPM concentration 1.330 0.197 32.02 $\bf NO_2^- $ concentration 0.006 0.762 32.21 Note: Variables in bold referred to statistically significant (P<0.05). WT: water temperature; SPM: suspended particulate matter; COD: chemical oxygen demand; Sal: salinity; TOC: total organic carbon; TN: total nitrogen; TP: total phosphorus; Pseudo-F: Pseudo-F Statistics test value. Table 2. Mantel tests showed Spearman’s rank correlations of the whole community in relation to geographic distance within the four seasons
Season Variation source Simple Mantel test Controlled by Partial Mantel test $\rho $ P $\rho $ P Spring Geo 0.326 <0.001 Env 0.331 <0.001 Summer Geo 0.252 <0.001 Env 0.253 <0.001 Autumn Geo 0.370 <0.001 Env 0.373 <0.001 Winter Geo 0.206 <0.001 Env 0.231 <0.001 Note: Geo: geographic distance; Env: environmental factors as a whole; $\rho $: correlation coefficients between pairwise distance of the whole community distance and geographic distance derived from Mantel test with 9 999 permutations. -
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