TY - JOUR T1 - Distribution and Abundance of Phytoplankton in Helleh River Estuary (Persian Gulf-Iran) TT - پراکنش و فراوانی فیتوپلانکتون درمصب رودخانه حله (خلیج فارس- ایران) JF - IJAE JO - IJAE VL - 3 IS - 9 UR - http://ijae.iut.ac.ir/article-1-563-en.html Y1 - 2014 SP - 15 EP - 28 KW - Phytoplankton KW - Abundance KW - Distribution KW - Helleh estuary KW - Persian Gulf. N2 - Estuaries are one of the most productive aquatic ecosystems that both ecologically and economically are important. The study purposed to investigate the distribution and abundance of phytoplankton from Helleh river estuary (Boushehr- Persian Gulf). Samples were taken in mid-season from summer 2011 to spring 2012 for one year period. Results showed that the dissolved oxygen, temperature, salinity, pH and the visible depth of Secchi disk were varied in the range of 6.45-12.25 mg/l, 13-34.4 oC, 9-45 ppt, 8.04-8.23 and 40-55 cm, respectively. The phytoplankton community comprised of Ochrophyta (3 classes, 17 families, and 22 genera), Myzozoa (1 class, 6 families, and 8 genera), Cyanophyta (1 class, 2 families, and 2 genera), Chlorophyta (2 classes, 2 families, and 2 genera) and Haptophyta (1 class, 1 family, and 1 geneus). All samples were dominated by Ochrophyta, especially Bacillariophyceae class. The range of phytoplankton abundance were obtained 2266.7-13533.3, 4933.3-11866.7, 2066.7-9266.7 and 1333.3-28666.7 cells/L in summer, autumn, winter and spring, respectively. In addition, there were significant correlation between phytoplankton abundance with pH (r= 0.57, P M3 ER -