Mangrove zooplankton community structure and copepod egg production in North Queensland, Australia

Plankton community composition studies were carried out of the mangrove environments of the Haughton River and in the northern rivers of Queensland (Daintree, McIvor, Lockhart, Claudie and Pascoe),Egg production experiments were carried out in the laboratory in the case of the Haughton River. Samples were collected from the Cromarty Landing at the Haughton River, in Niskin bottle and preserved for analysis. Oithona Spp females were counted, and separated by those that were not ovigerous, those carrying one egg sac, and those carrying two egg sacs. Egg production was estimated by the egg-ratio method. Feeding and predation experiments were also conducted. Egg production rates from the Cape York rivers were calculated by the same method carried out onboard. Feeding and metabolic experiments were also conducted and differed markedly from the experiments from the Haughton River, thought to be due to tropic determinants. This research was undertaken to improve our understanding of the contribution of zooplankton to energy flow in mangrove ecosystems.