Autumn community structure in the shallow mixed layer of the subtropical South China Sea reveals a peculiar copepod and zooplankton assemblage

Abstract

The South China Sea is the world's largest marginal sea. To understand the zooplankton community structure during monsoon transition period we investigated the copepod composition, abundance and distribution at six stations along a transect line in the subtropical South China Sea during the autumn of 1999. In the present study, 22 major zooplankton taxa were found, with Noctilucales, calanoid copepods and poecilostomatoid copepods being the most abundant of the overall zooplankton counts. We identified a total of 37 copepod species, in 25 genera, belonging to 19 families. The numerically most dominant genera were Paracalanus, Calocalanus and Oncaea. Communities of zooplankton and copepods of the northern South China Sea demonstrated varied spatial distributions during the investigated period. The present study provides the composition of zooplankton and copepod community structures in the shallow mixed layer of the subtropical South China Sea during the northeast monsoon transition period.

Geospatial variability in the autumn community structure of epipelagic zooplankton in the upper layer of the northern South China Sea

“…These results confirm copepods as the dominant mesozooplankton taxon in coastal areas of the SCS, the Pearl River estuary (Tan et al 2004), and the Malacca Strait (Yoshida et al 2006). Tseng et al (2012b) reported that Noctilucales were the dominant zooplankton group (RA of 42.55%) in surface waters of the northern SCS. A similar result was reported for Noctiluca scintillans (Macartney) Kofoid & Swezy, 1921, which was abundant (7310.39 ± 36,102.05 ind./m 3 , RA of 51.04%) in surface waters of the southwestern East China Sea (ECS) during a summer cruise (Tseng et al 2011b).…”

“…The present study recorded an average abundance in waters shallower than 100 m of 99.14 ± 97.84 ind./m 3 . This value is lower than that in Tseng et al (2012b) who recorded an average copepod abundance of 523.42 ± 262.82 ind./m 3 in surface waters of the northern SCS. Previous studies in the SCS reported that the dominant copepod species varied.…”

“…Previous reports analyzed the zooplankton community in coastal areas of urban outfalls in the northern SCS (Tseng et al 2008e) and of surface waters of the northern SCS (Tseng et al 2012b). Calanoid copepods represent the most abundant taxon in waters of southwestern Taiwan present study found calanoid copepods to be the most abundant taxa in waters shallower than 100 m in the northern SCS.…”

“…Previous reports studied zooplankton structures in the South China Sea (SCS): in northern areas (Chen 1992;Hwang et al 2000a;Tseng et al 2012b), coastal areas (Hwang et al 2003;Tseng et al 2008e), estuaries (Tan et al 2004), and the Malacca Strait (Yoshida et al 2006). The community structure of plankton is generally affected by the dynamics of water masses (Hwang et al 2000a(Hwang et al , 2007aTseng et al 2012b) and the effects of monsoons (Hwang et al 2004Dur et al 2007;Tseng et al 2008cTseng et al , 2011cDahms et al 2012).…”

“…The community structure of plankton is generally affected by the dynamics of water masses (Hwang et al 2000a(Hwang et al , 2007aTseng et al 2012b) and the effects of monsoons (Hwang et al 2004Dur et al 2007;Tseng et al 2008cTseng et al , 2011cDahms et al 2012). Li et al (2010) suggested that the SCS is the world's bestknown monsoonal climate zone.…”