Temporal variation of zooplankton on a tropical Amazonian beach

Assessment of surf zone zooplankton dynamics in a Southwestern Atlantic sandy beach: Seasonal cycle and tidal height influence

“…Particularly in surf zone waters, these crustaceans also contribute with most of the zooplankton biomass and diversity (Costa et al, 2011;Pinheiro et al, 2013;Oliveira Santos et al, 2016;Stull et al, 2016). In the case of meroplankton, medusae, benthic invertebrates' larvae and Teleostei eggs were the most important contributors, especially in warmer seasons.…”

“…Studies conducted in other sandy beaches mentioned the presence of A. tonsa (Avila et al, 2009;Stull et al, 2016) and P. parvus (Avila et al, 2009) in surf waters, although only the former as numerically important. Additionally, some other Paracalanidae species like Paracalanus quasimodo and Paracalanus aculeatus are common and can dominate surf waters of Brazilian beaches (Avila et al, 2009;Costa et al, 2011;Pinheiro et al, 2011Pinheiro et al, , 2013. The bentho-pelagic E. acutifrons has been also reported in surf waters of Ajuruteua beach in Northern Brazil, but as dominant taxon (Costa et al, 2011;Pinheiro et al, 2011Pinheiro et al, , 2013.…”

“…tropical and/or subtropical beaches (Avila et al, 2009;Costa et al, 2011;Pinheiro et al, 2011Pinheiro et al, , 2013Oliveira-Santos et al, 2016). These studies evidenced that seasonal variation in precipitation and the associated changes in salinity, are the main factors influencing the tropical and subtropical zooplankton communities (Costa et al, 2011;Pinheiro et al, 2011).…”

“…Zooplankton has a crucial position in surf zones, functioning as a linkage between primary producers and higher trophic levels such as fishes and shrimps, in addition to its role as environmental indicator (Pinheiro et al, 2013;Oliveira-Santos et al, 2016). It also represents a food source for filter-feeding benthic macrofauna, so changes in this community may have a severe impact on beach ecosystems (Defeo et al, 2009).…”

“…Zooplankton spatial and temporal dynamics and their relationship with the hydrological variables has been extensively studied in several types of coastal systems (e.g. David et al, 2005;Marques et al, 2007Marques et al, , 2009Leandro et al, 2007), however, there have been very few studies in sandy beach surf zones (DeLancey, 1987;Avila et al, 2009;Costa et al, 2011;Pinheiro et al, 2011Pinheiro et al, , 2013Aboul-Ezz et al, 2014;Oliveira-Santos et al, 2016;Stull et al, 2016). Moreover, a very limited number of these studies provide estimates of abundance and/or biomass (McLachlan and Defeo, 2018) and most of them are focused on…”