Increasing dominance of dinoflagellate red tides in the coastal waters of Yellow Sea, China

Abstract

The Yellow Sea (YS) has been subjected to harmful algal blooms (HABs) for several decades. In this study, we compiled and analyzed a dataset of 165 red tides from 1972 to 2017 and a dataset of green tides from 2008 to 2017 in the YS. The most notable feature of red tides in the YS is the increasing dominance of dinoflagellate red tides in terms of frequency, scale, seasonal distribution, spatial coverage, and red tide causative species. The increasing dominance of dinoflagellate red tides is closely related to eutrophication and the development of the mariculture industry in the YS. However, the dinoflagellate red tides in the northern Yellow Sea (NYS) and the southern Yellow Sea (SYS) have different features. The apparent changes in red tides in the SYS in terms of frequency and seasonal patterns might have been caused by recurrent large-scale green tides in the last decade.

Keywords: Climate change; Eutrophication; Green tide; Harmful algal bloom; Mariculture; Red tide.