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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Summer phytoplankton assemblages across trophic gradients in hard-water reservoirs

subject

description

Summer phytoplankton assemblages are described and characterised according to their prevalence in a series of hard-water reservoirs of eastern Spain that had been classified in trophic categories on OECD criteria. Distribution patterns of phytoplankton species were ordinated statistically by principal components analysis (PCA). The first component was strongly related to trophic gradient and it particularly discriminated the eutrophic and hypertrophic reservoirs. The second component segregated life-forms, so that (1), on the oligo-mesotrophic side, large dinoflagellates were separated from small centric diatoms, unicellular chrysophytes and filamentous ullotrichales and, on the eu-hypertrophic side (2), colonial greens and large desmids were separated from unicellular volvocales and small centric diatoms.