Spatial distribution of phytoplankton in the eastern part of the North ...

3.3. Phytoplankton composition of the transectA total of 144 different specieswere found at all stations along thewhole transect. The species list withvalues of relative abundances at allstations and references to plates are givenin Tab. 7 at the end of the document.With 85 species, diatoms were therichest group. In comparison, only 44of the species found weredinoflagellates. Other algal groupsFigure 6. Total species numbers of different groups ofwere much less abundant (Fig. 6). The marine phytoplankton, found in the transect.highest number of algal species werefound at stations 153 and 151 (79taxa), located in the middle part of thetransect. At both ends of the transect,where higher fluorescence wasmeasured, a lower number of specieswas found (Fig. 7). This differencewas caused mainly by changes in thenumber of dinoflagellate species.Whereas the number of diatom speciesfound was similar at all stations, theFigure 7. Spatial variation in the species number ofnumbers of dinoflagellate species were diatoms, dinoflagellates and other algal groups.highest at stations in the middle of thetransect.‣ Craspedophyceae – Two species of colourless flagellates – Calliacantha simplex andParvicorbicula socialis – were found in samples from stations 125 and 153. Both taxa bear anextracellular lorica, which structure serves as important taxonomic feature. The species were foundonly in TEM grids, prepared during the sampling. Due to the small size of choanoflagellate species11