A short-term study on the effect of environmental factor variation on a zooplankton community

摘要

In the coastal marine ecosystem, zooplankton plays an important role. Its distribution and assortment, however, are driven by several physio-chemical parameters in an association. In the present study, a short-term investigation on the zooplankton community was carried out between July 2016 to November 2016 at the coastal region of Muttukadu, Chennai to unveil the critical association between zooplankton and physio-chemical parameters. Pronounced changes in physiochemical parameters were recorded in study area. Nitrate (0.55 +/- 0.05 mu M) and nitrite (6.23 +/- 1.35 mu M) showed an inverse relationship with chlorophyll -a during August and November. Among the identified zooplankton groups, copepods cover 52 % of total zooplankton abundance except for the month of August 2016. This was followed by a contrast in abundance between calanoid copepod (ranging from 182 +/- 45 - 67 +/- 1 Individuals L-1) and Brachionus sp. (rotifer) (ranging from 15 +/- 3 - 7 +/- 1 Individual L-1) in the months of July and September 2016. Our findings shows a crucial binding between physio-chemical parameters, phytoplankton (chlorophyll -a), and zooplankton, and dependency between plankton groups for food within the Muttukadu ecosystem.