85 μg C L− 1). Microphytoplankton cell abundances ranged from 7.25 × 103 to 2.12 × 106 cells L− 1 and the carbon biomass from 1.25 to 121.98 μg C L− 1, with the minima recorded in the autumn and the maxima in the spring. The micro size-class was almost exclusively dominated by diatoms in terms of abundance ( Figure 5); as regards biomass, however, the situation was somewhat different. In the spring, at station BK1, the microchlorophytes (Pediastrum sp.) made a substantial contribution to the microphytoplankton carbon biomass Antidiabetic Compound Library concentration –

81% (99.36 μg C L− 1). Among the diatoms, Skeletonema marinoi ( Figures 8b,c,d) was the main component of the winter/spring bloom, contributing up to 96% of the microphytoplankton abundance and achieving high cell concentrations above the halocline

http://www.selleckchem.com/products/BI-2536.html of 2.86 × 106 and 1.10 × 106 cells L− 1 in spring and winter respectively. In the autumn, when cell numbers were low, S. marinoi was among the codominant species, constituting 15% of the microphytoplankton abundance (1.97 × 104 cells L− 1). In the summer, Pseudo-nitzschia pseudodelicatissima ( Figures 8a,e) with maxima of 1.20 × 105 cells L− 1 and Thalassionema frauenfeldii with maxima of 1.12 × 105 cells L− 1 were the co-dominant diatom species, respectively contributing up to 45% and 30% of the total microphytoplankton cell concentration. Dinoflagellates were significant in the phytoplankton assemblages in the summer as well, especially at station BK1, where they reached values of 84.57 μg C L− 1 or 80% of the microphytoplankton carbon, mostly due to the development of the species Prorocentrum micans. The application of PCA to the environmental data revealed that the first three principal components (PCs) had eigenvalues > 0.05 and accounted for 97.6% of the total variance (Table 3), representing a good description the environmental structure. The first principal

component (PC1) of Oxymatrine accounted for 84.8% of the total variance, with nutrients representing the highest positive loads, whereas salinity loaded negatively. The second principal component (PC2) expressed 8.7% of the variation and was also related to nutrients. The samples from the layer above the halocline in the summer were related primarily to temperature. This was interpreted by the third principal component (PC3), which explained 4.1% of the variance. Abundances of dominant phytoplankton taxa were superimposed on the PCA scatter plot and their distributions indicated their preference for particular environmental conditions (Figure 6 and Figure 7). The correlation coefficients presented in Table 4 confirmed the statistically significant relationships between species abundances and physico-chemical parameters. Both phytoplankton abundances and carbon biomasses were generally higher in Boka Kotorska Bay than in the outer coastal (Socal et al.