Changes and influencing factors of phytoplankton in the Tianjin coastal waters of Bohai Bay at the early stage of COVID-19 outbreak

Lili Qiao; Weimin Wang; Yiran Liu; Changyuan Tang; Yizhang Zhang; Rongxin Su; Renliang Huang

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2024.117496

Changes and influencing factors of phytoplankton in the Tianjin coastal waters of Bohai Bay at the early stage of COVID-19 outbreak

Mar Pollut Bull. 2024 Dec 23:211:117496. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2024.117496. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Lili Qiao¹, Weimin Wang², Yiran Liu³, Changyuan Tang⁴, Yizhang Zhang⁵, Rongxin Su⁶, Renliang Huang⁷

Affiliations

¹ Tianjin Key Laboratory for Marine Environmental Research and Service, School of Marine Science and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China; Research Institute for Environmental Innovation, Tianjin 300450, China.
² Zhejiang Institute of Tianjin University, Ningbo 315200, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
³ Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 999077, Hong Kong, China.
⁴ Research Institute for Environmental Innovation, Tianjin 300450, China.
⁵ Research Institute for Environmental Innovation, Tianjin 300450, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁶ Tianjin Key Laboratory for Marine Environmental Research and Service, School of Marine Science and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.
⁷ Tianjin Key Laboratory for Marine Environmental Research and Service, School of Marine Science and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China. Electronic address: [email protected].

PMID: 39719786
DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2024.117496

Abstract

We studied the characteristics of plankton community and its response to water environmental factors at the early stage of COVID-19 outbreak (2019-2020) in the Tianjin coastal waters of Bohai Bay. The water quality showed a good trend during this period, due to the reduction of pollution brought by the runoff rivers and water exchange driven by the circulation. In the survey area, 68 species of diatomata and dinoflagellata phytoplankton were found, where diatomata was the dominant population. The number of phytoplankton increased from 636,000 in 2019 to 1,642,600 in 2020. Compared with 2019, the impact factors of water environment in the surveyed area changed greatly, where nitrogen was the main impact factor in 2020. The adjustment of production and lifestyle in the early stage of COVID-19 outbreak suddenly slowed down the growth of the secondary industry, which contributed a lot to the improvement of water quality in 2020.'

Keywords: Bohai Bay; Industrial structure; Phytoplankton; The COVID-19 pandemic; Water environmental factor.