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Phytoplankton in coastal waters are important for the evaluation of either biodiversity or environmental impacts because of this highly vulnerable ecosystem. Seasonal and annual changes in the phytoplankton community structure in Quang Ngai waters during the period 2015 to 2019 were analyzed to assess the phytoplankton diversity and reveal possible causes of these changes. A total of 366 phytoplankton taxa belonging to 10 classes were identified throughout this present study. The highest species number was found in 2019 with 295 taxa, followed by those in 2015 (247), 2017 (185), and 2018 (99). The waters of Ly Son transect showed the highest diversity and most stable phytoplankton communities in both dry and rainy seasons, whereas the stations of Quang Ngai coast revealed high variability of the communities. All diversity indices including Margalef, Pielou, Shannon, Simpson did not reflect well differences in average values but a certain degree of variances, indicating possible environmental impacts. During the study time, there were blooms of certain diatom species including Skeletonema spp. in 2015 and Pseudo-nitzschia spp. in 2019. Analysis of a diatoms index, Centric/Pennate ratio, indicated that the waters were in eutrophic status with a decreasing trend from the coast area to Ly Son island in 2015 and 2019. This research built up fundamental data on phytoplankton communities for Quang Ngai province. The Centric/Pennate diatom index and diversity would be used as indicators for environmental changes and their values provided warning of eutrophication in this coastal waters including the water surrounding Ly Son island.

Although there were a number of studies on the section Oceanica of the genus Protoperidinium, most of the published figures did not well revealed the clear features of the anterior intercalary plates. In this paper, Protoperidinium carum was re-described in details of cell morphology, plate patterns and thecal ornamentation, especially the second anterior intercalary plate (2a) is wide pentagonal instead of hexagonal type as in the previous descriptions. This species was illustrated with line drawing, light and scanning electron microscope photographs. P. carum was newly recorded in Southeast Asia and Vietnamese waters.

Data on characteristics of phytoplankton communities is important scientific information in marine ecosystem, especially in assessment of environmental impacts on biodiversity in a specific waters. In the present study, two-year phytoplankton data was analyzed for species diversity, community structure changes and variation in 4 adjacent waters: Lower Thu Bon river (TB), transition waters (CT), Cu Lao Cham island (CLC) and offshore site (BM) to provide basic scientific data of phytoplankton communities, compare and assess seasonal changes and possible linkage of these adjacent waters. A total of 364 phytoplankton taxa of 12 classes were identified, showing high diversity and with seasonal variation of the investigated waters. There was strong difference of phytoplankton communities among the adjacent waters with low similarity index and the change of dominant species seasonally in each area. The species richness and diversity in the lower Thu Bon river were lower than in other areas. Variation of phytoplankton abundance and diversity along the river transect showed changes in species composition between the dry and rainy seasons but with similar trend in abundance. The low community similarity between the adjacent waters and the transition waters may indicate low impacts of river flow on phytoplankton communities in the coastal waters.