Mangrove and seagrass habitats exhibited marked seasonality in densities of most taxa (for total zooplankton typically ca 2 to 6 × 10⁴ m⁻³ in the wet season to ca 0.1 to 5 × 10³ m⁻³ in the dry season). Total densities of zooplankton in mangrove and seagrass habitats (range of mean annual densities, 1.13 to 1.97 × 10⁴ m⁻³) were always higher than in the offshore bay habitat (x̄ = 0.88 × 10⁴ m⁻³). Community structure often differed amongst mangrove habitats, but mangrove habitats clustered separately from seagrass and bay habitats in classification analyses due to the abundance of meroplankton taxa, particularly invertebrate eggs and brachyuran zoea, in mangrove habitats. Copepods, in particular Parvocalanus crassirostris, Paracalanus spp., several species of Oithona and Euterpina acutifrons, were numerically dominant. Zooplankton was sampled in a mangrove forest, a mangrove drainage creek, the mainstream of a mangrove-dominated estuary, an adjacent seagrass flat and at an offshore (10 km) station in northeastern Australia every 6 wk between April 1985 and February 1986.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |