Unveiling Phytoplankton Diversity: Taxonomy, Functional Groups, and
Environmental Drivers in North China Lakes
Abstract
To investigate the intricate relationship between phytoplankton taxonomy
composition and functional group structure, and identifying the key
environmental drivers of phytoplankton community dynamics, we conducted
a comprehensive study encompassing 11 lakes and reservoirs located in
North China. Environmental parameters, spanning climato-geographic
factors and hydrochemical variables, were comprehensively assessed.
Phytoplankton were categorized utilizing both traditional taxonomic
criteria and functional group classifications. Our investigation
unveiled rich phytoplankton diversity across these 11 water bodies,
comprising 81 genera spanning 7 phyla. This taxonomic diversity was
further organized into 30 distinct functional groups (FG). Remarkably,
when comparing community structures, we observed a high degree of
similarity between taxonomic and functional group-based classifications
in lakes. Redundancy analysis (RDA) results underscored the pivotal role
of climato-geographic factors as dominant drivers influencing both
taxonomic composition and functional group distribution. Intriguingly,
variance partitioning analysis (VPA) revealed that while
climato-geographic factors exerted substantial influence, their impact
was eclipsed by hydrochemical factors. The intricate interplay of six
environmental parameters emerged as influential through stepwise
regression analysis. These included chlorophyll-a (chl-a), Chemical
Oxygen Demand (CODMn), Total Phosphorus (TP), Total Nitrogen (TN),
Secchi Depth (SD), and Longitudinal Position (LON).