Phytoplankton community structure and its ecological responses to environmental changes in Jinzhou Bay, China

Phytoplankton plays a vital role in marine ecosystem functioning. It generates roughly 50% of the global primary production, affects the climate process and biogeochemical cycles and sets the upper limits to fishery yield. Jinzhou Bay is a small and shallow semi-enclosed bay in north China with a area of 151.5 km super(2) and an averaged depth of 3.5 m. It has a long history of heavy pollution featured by water column eutrophication and heavy metals contamination. Two cruises were carried out during August 2011 and May 2012 respectively to study the spatial distribution and assemblage structure of phytoplankton as well as their ecological responses to the environment changes. Systematic and long-term monitoring and study is needed to reveal the ecological responses of phytoplankton assemblage to environment changes and to identify the species capable of indicating the water column eutrophication and heavy metal pollution status of Jinzhou Bay.