Ecological Studies On Fouling Organisms At Yangshan Deep-Water Port

Yangshan Deep-water port is China's major port in building an international shipping center. Further construction and increased foreign vessels will have a great change to the ecological system of Yangshan Deep-Water Port. In addition, docking of foreign vessels make the Yangshan port in face of high risk of biological invasion. At the same time, the attachment of the fouling organisms in large numbers cause serious impacts on the port facilities. In this paper, five following contents were studied. The results shows that:(1) We researched the water environment factors of the sea of Yangshan Deep-WaterPort monthly in 2009 in order to illustrate character of water environment and the temporal variation. The result showed that monsoon and ocean current are the important reasons of the water environment factors in temporal variation. Water temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, salinity, conductivity and suspended solids concentration showed significant differences terribly (P <0.01) by the variance analysis. There is no significant correlation between suspended solids concentration and salinity by correlation analysis. It's proposed that suspensions from the Yangtze Estuary will not affect the sea area of Yangshan Deep-Water Port directly. On the other hand, waves, tides and ocean currents effect is an important factor to arouse high concentration suspended solids concentration in the sea area of Yangshan Deep-water port.(2) We studied the community structure and diversity of fouling organisms via asystematic scheme of quantitative quadrat sampling in different intertidal area of Yangshan port on May 2010. In this investigation, 17 species of fouling organisms were sampled. The dominant species were Amphibalanus reticulates and Ostrea cucullata. Density, biomass, community structure and diversity have significantly difference in different intertidal areas. Species richness, density and biomass showed an increasing tendency with the rising of intertidal area. However, evenness showed a decreasing tendency. More unique biodiversity index trend is as follows: middle tidal zone>low tidal zone>high tidal zone. It was the first time to present the coverage data of live fouling organism of Yangshan Island .We found the highest diversity occurred at the coverage of 30%~40% range of fouling organism, and this result support the intermediate disturbance hypothesis in all of the three diversity indices. Coverage is the basic parameter widely available for most observation or monitoring programs. The good qualitative characteristics of coverage provide powerful tool for the theoretical, experimental and modeling studies of fouling organism in response to the disturbance.(3) An annual panel test on fouling organisms was carried out in the Yangshan port from March 2009 to March 2010 to explore the community structure and development trend. In this investigation, 19 species of fouling organisms were sampled, among which Ostrea cucullata,Balanus reliculatus,Membranipora grandicella,Sinoflustra amoyensis,Aspidelectra bihamata,Tubularia mesembryanthemum,Obelia geniculata and Sabellaria ishikawai were dominant species. The characteristics of fouling organisms in Yangshan port were euryoecous or hypohalinous in their major species, which usually present along the coast or near an estuary. Bioattachment occurred throughout the year except winter months, but the main period of settlement extended from June to October of 2009.The mean biomass of fouling organisms on the monthly, seasonal, and annual test panels were 9.20, 127.20 and 774.04 g/m~2. In addition, we study the Community development and species succession of fouling organisms in Yangshan port, the result shows that fouling organisms in Yangshan port have a unstable community structure and a varied species succession.(4) Four seasons ecological investigation of macrobenthos were investigated in two different stations in the intertidal zones of Yangshan Port from October 2009 to July 2010. 61 species were identified, in which 22 species of Mollusca, 16 species of Annelida, 12 species of Arthropoda, 5 species of Bryozoa, 4 species of coelenterate, 1 species of Sipuncula and 1 species of Echinodermata. The dominant species were Littorina brevicula, Perinereis nuntia, Tetraclita japonica, Nerita yoldii and Macromedaeus distinguendus. The characteristics of macrobenthos in Yangshan port were euryoecous or hypohalinous in their major species, which usually present along the coast or near an estuary. ABC curves, hierarchical clustering and MDS were applied to analyze the data of community structure. The results showed that: Dayang island had suffered less disturbance with the consequence of a stable community structure. However, Shenggu island had suffered moderate disturbance with the consequence of a poor stable community structure. Biomass, density and Shannon-Wiener index of macrobenthos in Shenggu island were significantly decreased compared to previous research. This trend has a great relationship with the increased salinity, altered habitat and intensified anthropogenic disturbance of Yangshan port.(5) Morphological Plasticity of Fistulobalanus Albicostatus to the environment of Yangshan Port was studied the in 2009. The morphological characteristics of Fistulobalanus albicostatus in different habitats were investigated to have knowledge of the correlation between the morphological characteristics and environment. Current and illumination intensity have large impacts on the morphological characteristics of Fistulobalanus albicostatus attached to the Yangshan port by the correlation analysis and variance analysis. The high-length ratio (H/L) of Fistulobalanus albicostatus is mainly affected by the current. H/L is smaller with increasing current following by the transformation from a steep cone-shaped cone to lower one. Illumination mainly affected the superficial area-volume rate (Sa/V) with the fact that Sa/V is smaller and smaller as the increasing illumination intensity. Yangshan Port suffered minor wave and lower illumination intensity, which mainly caused larger H/L, Sa as well as Sa/V.