Environmental influence on coastal phytoplankton and zooplankton diversity: a multivariate statistical model analysis

In a marine ecosystem, the diversity of phytoplankton can influence the diversity of zooplankton, or vice versa, and both can be affected by the environmental factors. In this study, we used principal component analysis (PCA) to identify the major sources of influence on the coastal water near an industrial park, following by construction of structural equation model (SEM) to determine the direct and indirect effect of the factors on phytoplankton and zooplankton diversity. PCA results indicated that the coastal area was mainly affected by riverine discharge (represented by high PC factor loadings of transparency and turbidity) and seasonal change (represented by temperature). SEM further suggested that both riverine discharge and seasonal influences can directly affect phytoplankton diversity, but indirectly affected zooplankton diversity via changes in phytoplankton. Using PCA to determine the sources of influence followed by construction of SEM allowed us to understand the relative importance of the environmental factors, direct or indirect, on phytoplankton and zooplankton diversity. When environmental changes occur, a new SEM could be constructed using the same category of physical and biological data and then compared to the current model to verify whether the environmental changes were the cause of alterations in planktonic communities in the area.