The dynamics of a dominant dinoflagellate, Noctiluca scintillans, in the subtropical coastal waters of the Matsu archipelago

Abstract

Bioluminescent seas caused by blooms of the dinoflagellate Noctiluca scintillans are a famous scenic attraction in the Matsu archipelago near the Chinese coast in the northern part of the Taiwan Strait. The relationship between the abundance of N. scintillans and various environmental factors was examined in the subtropical coastal waters of these islands from April to December, 2016. N. scintillans disappeared after June 20th, when the sea water temperature exceeded 27°C. A strong inverse correlation between N. scintillans and diatoms in PCA analysis indicated that diatoms suffer high grazing pressure from N. scintillans. N. scintillans appeared most abundantly during the flood season, when diatoms are most abundant. Strong inverse correlations between N. scintillans and the wind speed and wind direction in PCA further point to the effect of wind on the accumulation of cells.

Phytoplankton Blooms, Red Tides and Mucilaginous Aggregates in the Urban Thessaloniki Bay, Eastern Mediterranean

“…Noctiluca scintillans is one of the most important red tide forming dinoflagellate worldwide in the water temperature range of 10-25 • C, and salinity range of 28 to 36 in eutrophic areas dominated by diatoms [15,67], similar to our study area. Noctiluca red tides have been linked to eutrophication in several areas of the world and especially in the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara [68][69][70], the Aegean Sea [71], and Adriatic Sea [72].…”

“…A rich food supply of a broad spectrum of food items (from bacteria to fish eggs) is needed to start massive growth and formation of red tides, while availability of phytoplankton as a prey is a key factor [67,75]. Particularly, Noctiluca red tides are known to coincide or follow diatom blooms [16,67,76]. A strong temporal overlapping of N. scintillans and diatoms blooms has been also observed in the present study.…”

“…The red tide forming N. scintillans terminated its growth in our study area by the increase of water temperature above 25 • C, as in many other studies, but temperature did not correlate with the start of its growth ( [67] and references therein). A rich food supply of a broad spectrum of food items (from bacteria to fish eggs) is needed to start massive growth and formation of red tides, while availability of phytoplankton as a prey is a key factor [67,75]. Particularly, Noctiluca red tides are known to coincide or follow diatom blooms [16,67,76].…”

In Search of Red Noctiluca scintillans Blooms in the East China Sea

“…The review by Harrison et al (2011) shows that, while GNS is more restricted to a temperature range of 25-30°C in Southeast Asia and the northern Arabian Sea (as well as adjacent ocean waters), RNS is found over a wide temperature range of 10-25°C and high-salinity coastal regions all over the world. Indeed, RNS blooms have been reported in many such waters, for example, in the German Bight (Uhlig & Sahling, 1990), in the Seta Inland Sea of Japan (Tada et al, 2004), in the Sea of Mamara (Turkey) (Turkoglu, 2013), and in coastal waters of China (Tsai et al, 2018).…”

“…A second objective is to study the long-term distributions of RNS blooms in the East China Sea (ECS, 27 to 35°N, 120°E to 126.5°E). ECS is selected because RNS blooms have been reported many times from field observations (Tang et al, 2006;Tsai et al, 2018;Tseng et al, 2011;Xu, 2009). On the other hand, located downstream of the Yangtze River, the ECS is biologically and ecologically complex, where blooms of diatoms, dinoflagellate of Prorocentrum donghaiense (Lou & Hu, 2014;Shang et al, 2014;Tang et al, 2006;Tao et al, 2017), Ulva macroalgae (Hu, Li, et al, 2010;Qi et al, 2016), and Sargassum macroalgae (Qi et al, 2017) have frequently occurred.…”