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Spatiotemporal variations and impact factors of nutrients in the Sanya Bay, northern South China Sea

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Abstract

Nutrients play a fundamental role in maintaining coastal ecosystem stability. Based on two cruise observations in the winter of 2020 and the summer of 2021, the spatiotemporal variations of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) and orthophosphate (PO43−) and their influencing factors in Sanya Bay were analyzed. Results show that the mean DIN concentrations in the bay are 2.36 μmol/L in winter and 1.73 μmol/L in summer, and the mean PO43− concentrations are 0.08 μmol/L in winter and 0.04 μmol/L in summer. The nutrient concentrations and composition are significantly affected by the Sanya River. The surface DIN concentrations at the Sanya River estuary are 15.80 and 5.25 times than those inside the bay in winter and summer, respectively. Meanwhile, a high proportion of NO3− (74%) and a low proportion of NH4+ (20%) in DIN appear near the river estuary, while a low proportion of NO3− (37%) and a high proportion of NH4+ (53%) occur away from the estuary. In addition, the thermocline promotes the accumulation of NH4+ at the bottom layer in summer. The high proportion of NO3− is likely not favorable for the survival of coral reefs in eastern bay. Compared with the previous nutrient concentrations, the DIN concentration in the bay has a decrease after 2014, which might benefit from the implementation of the environmental protection policy by government.

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Data availability

The original observation data is listed in Table S4 (Online Resource 5). All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Key Research and Development Program of Hainan Province (grant numbers ZDYF2020203), the initial fund from Hainan University for Research and Development (grant numbers KYQD(ZR)21002), and the Opening Project of Guangxi Laboratory on the Study of Coral Reefs in the South China Sea (grant numbers GXLSCRSCS2020004).

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  1. Xinxing Geng and Chuanliang Wu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Marine Sciences, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, China

    Xinxing Geng, Ziwei Yang, Junying Zhu, Kai Tang, Jiamin Lin, Mingxun An & Weibin Zhao

  2. Sanya Coral Reef Ecology Institute, Sanya, 572000, China

    Chuanliang Wu, Yaxing Liu & Yufang Zhang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Marine Resources Utilization in South China Sea, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, China

    Junying Zhu

  4. Guangxi Laboratory On the Study of Coral Reefs in the South China Sea, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, China

    Junying Zhu

  5. Key Laboratory of Ocean Circulation and Waves, Institute of Oceanology, and Center for Ocean Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Yang Yu

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  1. Xinxing Geng
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Contributions

Xinxing Geng: methodology, investigation, formal analysis, software, writing—original draft, and writing—review and editing. Chuanliang Wu: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data curation, formal analysis, and writing—original draft. Ziwei Yang: methodology, investigation, data curation, and formal analysis. Junying Zhu: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, formal analysis, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, and supervision. Kai Tang, Jiamin Lin, Yaxing Liu, Yufang Zhang, Mingxun An, and Weibin Zhao: investigation, data curation, formal analysis; Yang Yu: formal analysis, and writing—original draft.

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Correspondence to Junying Zhu.

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Geng, X., Wu, C., Yang, Z. et al. Spatiotemporal variations and impact factors of nutrients in the Sanya Bay, northern South China Sea. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 76784–76797 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-27527-8

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