DECODING THE THREE-WAY ECOLOGICAL INTERACTION BETWEEN COASTAL EPIPELAGIC COPEPODS, BACTERIA AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT

We seasonally collected zooplankton and surface seawater samples in the coastal waters of the Israeli Mediterranean Sea. We identified by morphological characters and DNA barcoding three dominant epipelagic copepods (the calanoid copepods Centropages ponticus and Temora stylifera and the cyclopoid copepod Oithona nana) with distinct feeding strategies to characterize the associated microbial communities.

本研究于以色列地中海近岸海域季节性采集浮游动物(zooplankton)及表层海水(surface seawater)样本。研究人员通过形态学特征与DNA条形码(DNA barcoding)技术，鉴定出三种优势真光层浮游桡足类(epipelagic copepods)，分别为哲水蚤目桡足类(calanoid copepods) *Centropages ponticus*、*Temora stylifera*与剑水蚤目桡足类(cyclopoid copepods) *Oithona nana*，这三类桡足类具备差异化的摄食策略，本研究依托它们对其关联的微生物群落进行表征。