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JPR Advance Access originally published online on January 30, 2009
Journal of Plankton Research 2009 31(5):525-540; doi:10.1093/plankt/fbp002
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© 2009 The Author(s)
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Metazooplankton distribution across the Southern Indian Ocean with emphasis on the role of Larvaceans

Cornelia Jaspers1,{dagger}, Torkel Gissel Nielsen1,*, Jacob Carstensen1, Russell R. Hopcroft2 and Eva Friis Møller1

1 Department of Marine Ecology, National Environmental Research Institute, University of Aarhus, Frederiksborgvej 399, PO Box 358, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark 2 Institute of Marine Science, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK 99775-7220, USA

* CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: tgn{at}dmu.dk

Received on June 20, 2008; accepted on January 1, 2009


  Abstract

The abundance and depth distribution of metazoans >20 µm were investigated at seven stations across the Southern Indian Ocean (SIO), October–November 2006. Copepod nauplii, copepodites and larvaceans dominated the metazooplankton community. Copepodites were most abundant within Agulhas Current and Southern Ocean waters, decreasing toward subtropical/tropical areas, whereas larvaceans showed the inverse pattern. The fraction <200 µm contained the majority of the zooplankton enumerated, including 81, 23 and 93% of the larvacean, copepodite and nauplii abundances, respectively. The relative abundance of larvaceans compared with copepodites increased from 7 to 44% from South Africa towards Australia. Peak copepodite biomass was observed off South Africa, while larvacean biomass was <1% of the copepodite biomass there, increasing to 6% in tropical waters. Both copepodite and nauplii biomass were positively correlated to total Chl a (P < 0.0001), larvacean biomass was only significantly related to temperature (P = 0.0213). Despite their low biomass, larvacean production was estimated to exceed the copepod production up to five times. It appears that the abundance and role of larvaceans in the SIO has been severely underestimated in previous studies; thus future investigations into the fate of organic matter will remain incomplete if this group is not adequately considered.

{dagger} Present address: National Institute of Aquatic Resources, Technical University of Denmark, Charlottenlund Slot, 2920 Charlottenlund, Denmark.

Corresponding editor: Mark J. Gibbons


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