Fluctuations of Phytoplankton Community in the Coastal Waters of Caspian Sea in 2006

Abstract

Problem statement:The Caspian Sea ecosystem has been suffered with many problems since 1980s. Aanthropogenic pollution from heavy metals, hydrocarbons, pesticides, changes in the quantity of nutrient inputs by rivers, are significant threats to biodiversity and biological resources such as plankton structure in the Caspian Sea. According to the significant of phytoplankton community in marine system. The state of the fluctuations of phytoplankton communities of the southwestern Caspian Sea was investigated and compared with the findings of before 2006. Approach: Phytoplankton abundance and species composition of the Caspian Sea were evaluated by using samples collected at 12 stations along three transects. The study revealed that diatoms were higher than other groups of phytoplankton in 2006. The hydrology variation, increased fresh water inflow via rivers and a rise in nutrients concentrations have played important roles in blooming of phytoplankton species, e.g., the diatoms in this study, which is also known from other marines. Similar studies on determination of the effects of environmental degradation on phytoplankton and hydrological processes should be taken into account in near future.

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“…The findings on both nutrients and their ratios, and qualitative and quantitative phytoplankton distributions indicated that the system was underneath eutrophication processes, as were indicated in previous studies (Bagheri et al, 2010(Bagheri et al, , 2011(Bagheri et al, , 2012b. However, according to previous trophic index (TRIX) values in the study area showed that the system was mesotrophic (Nasrollahzadeh et al, 2008b).…”

“…Recently, Khodaparast (2006), Bagheri et al (2011) and Nasrollahzadeh et al (2011) reported that the cyanophyte Nodularia spumigena Mertens ex Bornet and Flahault 1886 and dinoflagellate Heterocapsa sp. formed two abnormal phytoplankton blooms in the Iranian coasts of the Caspian Sea.…”

Phytoplankton Species Composition and Abundance in the Southwestern Caspian Sea

“…This correlation was significant at the 0.01 level. Nasrollahzade et al Bagheri et al (2010aBagheri et al ( , 2011a, according to both our data and previous data we suggest that the increase of phytoplankton was influenced by the discharge of the rivers which decreased the transparency in the soutwestern Caspian Sea.…”

“…Although various phytoplankton studies have been performed in the southern Caspian Sea in recent years (Hosseini et al 1998, Laloei 2001, Bagheri et al 2002, 2010a, 2011a, 2012, Ganjian and Makhlough 2003, Khodaparast 2006, Nasrollahzadeh et al 2008, there are a few phytoplankton studies in detail reported from the southwestern Caspian Sea. This study describes the temporal and spatial distributions of phytoplankton abundance and species composition in detail in the southwestern Caspian Sea in 2008 and the results were compared to studies from previous years.…”

List of Zooplankton Taxa in the Caspian Sea Waters of Iran

“…e Caspian Sea has undergone signi�cant ecological alteration during the past 30 years. is could be linked to dramatic changes in the southern Caspian Sea due to increased pollution: sewage, industry effluent, and agricultural waste water discharges into the river as well as deforestation of the river's watersheds [5,6].…”