Blooming mechanism of the word's largest green tides in the Yellow Sea

Green tides usually refer to blooming of opportunistic green seaweeds, such as Ulva spp. Most green tides occurred in the photic zone of eutrophic coastal waters. Largescale green tides can cause series of deleterious impacts to the local marine ecosystem and ecological services. Since 2007, the macroalgal blooms with extra large scale occurred continuously along the coasts of Yellow Sea, China, for 10 years. Green tides in the Yellow Sea were considered as the world’s largest macroalgal blooms, because the blooms reached up to 50, 000 km2 (distributed area) within 2-3 months, indicating that the dominant species, Ulva prolfiera have amazing growth and reproduction capability. The results in the present study provide critical information on the forming process of the blooms, growth and reproductive capability of the dominant speices, reproductive modes of Ulva segments and the adaptbility of the four common Ulva species in the Yellow Sea, which make it easier to understand how this species is able to support its explosive growth during a bloom.