Distribution of Zooplankton community in King's Bay, Svalbard, 2002

Zooplanktons were surveyed from 5 to 15 August 2002 at nine stations in King's Bay, Svalbard. Zooplankton community consisted of six taxa including eight species of copepods, hydrozoans, chaetognaths, polychaetes, appedicularians, and Ophiopluteus larvae. Copepods were dominant group and showed highest value in the frequency of abundance with 89.8% of total zooplankton. Among the zooplanktons, copepods, Pseudocalanus minutus, Pseudocalanus acuspes, Calanus glacialis, Calanus fimmarchicus, Oithona similis, Oithona atlantica, Oncaea sp. and Microsetella sp. were identified. Mean abundance was 2,348 inds./m3 ranging from 835 indv./m3 at st.4 to 6,232 indv./m3at st. 2. during the study periods. Zooplankton abundances were affected by the fluctuations of temperature and salinity. Abundances were fewer in the inner bay area near from glacier than in the open ocean mainly due to the copepod abundances. Generally zooplankton abundances were higher in high temperature and high salinity area than in low temperature and low salinity glacial coastal area. A cyclopoid copepod, Oithona similis was dominant in the surveyed area
To monitoring on zooplankton communities in Kongsfjorden