A 4-factorial (water temperature,salinity,nitrogen,and phosphorus) experiment was designed to study the niche characteristics of four common microalgae communities in prawn-aquaculture pond. The results showed that the niche breadth was the greatest for Cryptomonas erosa in temperature and salinity resources (0.980 and 0.988,respectively) and for Niztzschia closterium in nitrogen and phosphorus resources (0.990),but the smallest for Chlorella pyrenoidosa in all test resources,with an average value of 0.926. As for niche overlap,it was the smallest for C. erosa and C. pyrenoidosa in temperature and salinity resources (0.809 and 0.702,respectively) and for C. erosa and N. closterium in nitrogen and phosphorus resources (0.829),but the greatest for C. pyrenoidosa and Nannichloropsis oculata in temperature,salinity,and nitrogen and phosphorus resources,with the values being 0.986,0.974 and 0.989,respectively. All of these suggested that in prawn-aquaculture pond,C. erosa could be bred with any other three of the microalgae communities,while N. oculata and C. pyrenoidosa should not be bred together for their obvious competition on the resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]