The relationship between variation of phytoplankton species composition and physico-chemical parameters in northern coastal waters of Mumbai, India

673-684<span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family: " times="" new="" roman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:calibri;color:black;="" mso-ansi-language:en-us;mso-fareast-language:en-us;mso-bidi-language:en-us"="" lang="EN-US">Present study consists the relationship between phytoplankton community structure and physico-chemical parameters in Mahim Bay and Manori Creek. Altogether, 230 phytoplankton taxa comprising 131 diatoms, 82 dinoflagellates and 17 marine flagellates were recorded. Centric diatoms were the most common taxa, followed by thecatedinoflagellates. Seasonal blooms of diatoms and dinoflagellates occurred in the summer and at the end of the south-west monsoon. Additionally, we here report the first finding of two harmful dinoflagellate species, i.e. Pyrodinium bahamense and Dinophysis norvegica, in Indian coastal water. Dinophysis cf.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">norvegica was observed sporadically at Manori Creek. Except for PO43-, levels of major nutrients were low at both sites. Canonical correspondence analysis indicated that the relative abundance of some species was influenced by heavy metals and salinity. Dinophysis, Protoperidinium, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Ceratium and Leptocylindrus were inversely correlated to salinity, whereas some of the marine flagellates (e.g., Chrysochromulia, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Heterocapsa, Heterosigma and Fibrocapsa) and dinoflagellates (e.g., Noctiluca and Amphidinium) were seen alongside higher levels of heavy metals, such as Fe, Ni, Cu and Cd.