Marine Environments and Phytoplankton Community around Jeju Island, Korea in the Early Summer of 2016
This study described the spatial distributions of marine environmental factors such as water temperature, salinity, chlorophyll a concentration and turbidity, and characteristics of phytoplankton community such as species composition, standing crops and dominant species at 19 fishing ports around Jeju Island during the early summer of 2016. I analyzed bio-oceanographical characteristics using principal component analysis (PCA) of the environmental factors and biological parameters. Water temperature, salinity, chlorophyll a and turbidity ranged from 17.6 to 20.7℃, from 26.19 to 32.33 psu, from 0.76 to 7.13 μg L-1, and from 0.51 to 14.49 FTU, respectively. A total of 51 species of phytoplankton belonging to 35 genera were identified. In particular, diatoms and dinoflagellates accounted for more than 56.8% and 27.4% of all the species, respectively. Moreover, the number of phytoplankton species was controlled by salinity. Phytoplankton cell density ranged from 2.9 cells mL-1 to 185.9 cells mL-1. The dominant species were Navicula spp. Stephanopyxis turris, Eutreptiella gymnastica and Mesodinium rubrum. Environmental factors and the phytoplankton community varied greatly between sampling sites. According to PCA, the biological oceanographic characteristics of the around Jeju Island were characterized by meteorological factors such as air temperature, precipitation and discharge of ground water during early summer.