The community composition and production of phytoplankton in fish pens of Cape Bolinao, Pangasinan: A field study

Abstract

From 1995 up to the present, fish pens proliferated in the municipal waters of Bolinao, northern Philippines. Since then, fish kills and phytoplankton blooms have been recurrent. Have fishpens altered the phytoplankton community composition and production of these waters? The phytoplankton community in Cape Bolinao, Lingayen Gulf is typical of a tropical coastal area where diatoms alternate with dinoflagellates during the dry and wet seasons. In the nutrient-rich fish pens, phytoplankton in this study showed a lower diatom/dinoflagellate ratio and unusually high phytoplankton counts of 104 cells/l and even as high as 105 cells/l. Correlations between physico-chemical parameters, phytoplankton production and community composition were made in 2001. This paper tried to explain the occurrence of a Cylindrotheca closterium bloom (105 cells/l), during the dry season of the same year and a Prorocentrum minimum bloom (4.7 × 105 cells/l), which accompanied a massive fish kill during January 2002.