Distribution of phytoplankton community and its influence factors in an urban river network, East China

Highlights

Effects of urban river conditions on phytoplankton community were investigated.

Nitrate utilization and hydrodynamic condition affected phytoplankton distribution.

A winter bloom was induced by abundant ammonia, total phosphorus and organic matters.

The diatoms and euglenoids dominated in an urban beheaded river ecosystem.

Abstract

To reveal the distribution characteristics of phytoplankton and the main influence factors under different conditions in the urban rivers, the investigations were conducted during autumn and winter 2014 in Changzhou City, East China. 178 taxa of phytoplankton belonging to 28 functional assemblages were identified. In autumn, the phytoplankton community compositions have high similarity for enhanced hydrological connectivity. The chlorophytes and diatoms (prevailing functional groups C, F, J, P), together with euglenoids (W1), showed high proportions of biomass in the main rivers and connected rivers. It was related to the well mixed eutrophic conditions. The phytoplankton community exhibited spatiotemporal heterogeneity in winter. Affected by the low water level and temperature, the free-living phytoflagellates (X2) replaced groups F and J in the main rivers. Phytoplankton productivity was the highest in the Tongji River. Chlorophytes Dictyosphaerium ehrenbergianum and Chlamydobotrys stellata had an overwhelming superiority during the winter bloom. They were significantly correlated with ammonium, total phosphorus and biochemical oxygen demand. Affected by tail water supply, the diatoms (MP) and euglenoids (W1) dominated in a beheaded river. The multivariate analyses based on the phytoplankton functional groups helped to evaluate the relationships and variations between the urban rivers. The redundancy analysis (RDA) results showed that nitrate nitrogen, water temperature, total nitrogen and total suspended solids were the main influence factors on the phytoplankton community. Except MP, the prevailing groups all showed significant negative correlations with nitrate nitrogen. Availability and utilization of dissolved inorganic nitrogen and hydrodynamic conditions affected the phytoplankton distribution.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Phytoplankton composition / Spatiotemporal distribution / Functional groups / Nitrate nitrogen / Winter bloom

References

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Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the National Key Research Project on Water Environmental Pollution Control in China (No. 2017ZX07202002) and the Foundation of Tianjin Key Laboratory of Animal and Plant Resistance, Tianjin Normal University (No. 52XS1209). We are grateful to Dongjiong Xu, Qiao Chen and Engineer Xie of Changzhou Environmental Monitoring Center for their help with sampling and water quality analyses. Finally, we thank Professor Yuanyi Zhuang of Nankai University and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the manuscript.

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