Maintenance mechanism of Enteromorpha prolifera green tide: From perspective of nutrients utilization

Abstract

Green tide caused by macroalgae is one of the global ocean ecological disasters and nutrients with high concentration are considered as materials base for the outbreak of green tide. Nevertheless, there is no continuous nutrients supply for macroalgae during their floating in sea areas. Thus, there must be special nutrients utilization strategy for the macroalgae to maintain growth and proliferation even if the nutrients in seawater can not supply enough nutrients for them. To verify the hypothesis, <em>Enteromorpha</em> <em>prolifera</em> responsible for green tide was exposed to nutrients with different concentrations. <em>E. prolifera</em> absorbed and stored excrescent nutrients when it encountered nutrient eutrophication, then released and reutilized those stored nutrients for growth and proliferation in the nutrient-shortage seawaters. Thus, the green tide can be maintained by the nutrients regulation ability of <em>E. prolifera</em>. Results of the present work may be helpful to provide enlightenment on prediction and controlling of macroalgae green tide.