Variation of cyanobacteria with different environmental conditions in Nansi Lake, China

Nansi Lake is located on the east line of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project in China. A comprehensive study was carried out to investigate the spatial and temporal distribution of cyanobacteria in the lake from June 2008 to May 2011 based on monthly sample monitoring from five stations. The effect of environmental factors on cyanobacterial abundance was also evaluated. The cyanobacterial community contained 15 genera and 23 species. The cyanobacterial abundance of each monitoring station ranged from 0 to 1.53× 10⁷ cells/L with an average of 1.45×10⁶ cells/L, which accounted for 11.66% of the total phytoplankton abundance. The dominant species of cyanobacteria were Pseudanabaena (32.94%) and Merismopedia (19.85%), not the bloom-forming algae such as Microcystis and Anabaena. In addition, the cyanobacterial community structure and water quality variables changed substantially over the survey period. Redundancy analysis (RDA) suggested that temperature and phosphorus were important environmental factors that affected cyanobacteria. Temperature was the most important factor affecting cyanobacterial abundance. The effect of phosphorus on cyanobacterial abundance was more notable in warm periods than in periods with low temperature.