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Abundance and distribution of the surface zooplankton of the coastal zone Arapito – Santa Fe, Sucre state, Venezuela

Abstract:

The located onstudyzooplankton in of the zooplankton Mochima was carried National in theupon.coastal Park, For Sucre zonethis reasonis state, fundamental Venezuela, the compositionto is understand considered and communityecological an area of structureprocesses. great natural ofThezooplankton importance coastal zonewere and Arapito therefore determined- Santa the study inFe20 stations, separated in a) coastal stations and b) away from the coast during December 2008. Samples were collected obliquely by dragging a Bongo net (500 and 300 μm, with a flow meter). The community was characterized by the presence of holoplanktonic organisms and a lower proportion of meroplankton. The main holoplankton groups were cladocerans, copepods and gelatinous plankton (appendiculate, siphonophores and hydromedusae). The most abundant species were the cladocerans Penilia avirostris and Pseudevadne tergestina and the copepods Acartia tonsa and Temora turbinata. The high percentage of holoplankton in the study area let it to be considered as a growth and feeding zone. The AMOSIM-MDS showed significant differences (p <0.05) between the two environments with R = 0.27 but with low dissimilarity (17.4%), which suggests that mixing processes promote homogeneous distribution of zooplankton in the study area.