Relationship between environmental factors and benthic macroalgae communities of artificial reefs in Laoshan Bay

Abstract

It observed that a total of 22 species of macroalgae were recorded during the study period in the artificial reef. This included 17 Rhodophyta; algae communities were the most abundant in the spring; the succession in the algae vegetation in them was similar to that in surrounding natural reefs. Clustering analysis and MDS indicated that the algae communities in the artificial were most similar between summer and autumn. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Redundancy Analysis (RDA) results showed that temperature was the most important environmental factor on forming macroalgae communities.