Characteristics of the zooplankton community inhabiting the sea surface microlayer (SM) and the sub-surface microlayer (SSM) are compared at six sampling stations in Daya Bay, near Shenzhen City of China during 2 cruises in 1999. This is the first study on zooplankton community in the SM in China. Results show that protozoans and nauplii are the most dominant components, accounting for 80.71% (SM) and 89.15% (SSM) of the total zooplankton in the average abundance, respectively. The densities of copepods (adult + copepodid) are higher in the SSM than in the SM. The size-frequency distributions indicate that the frequency of micro-zooplankton (＜0.2mm) is higher in the SM (0.8235, n =290) than in the SSM (0.6768, n = 306). Enrichment phenomenon of zooplankton is detected in the SM at the sampling stations excluding two stations near nuclear power plants (NPP). The enrichment factor is from 1. 516to 3. 364 with the average value of 2. 267. The SM zooplankton community structure revealed in the present study is quite different from previous investigations in the Bay. Typical sea water characteristics such as turbidity, biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP) and chlorophyll a (Chl-a) indicate that the water quality is poorer in the SM than in the SSM.
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