Silberberger Marc J, Renaud Paul E, Eiane Ketil, Reiss Henning
Institute of Oceanology Polish Academy of Sciences Sopot Poland.
Akvaplan-niva Fram Centre for Climate and the Environment Tromsø Norway.
Ecol Evol. 2021 May 25;11(13):8713-8729. doi: 10.1002/ece3.7681. eCollection 2021 Jul.
Mesozooplankton research in high latitude ecosystems tends to focus on different life stages of spp. due to its biomass dominance and trophic roles. However, a complex seasonal succession of abundant smaller mesozooplankton taxa suggests that the ecological functioning of the mesozooplankton communities is more complicated. We studied the year-round taxon-specific biomass measurements and size distributions of mesozooplankton on a sub-Arctic continental shelf based on formalin preserved samples. Our results confirm that spp. dominate the mesozooplankton biomass (81%). We show that commonly used length-weight relationships underestimate biomass in autumn and winter, and accordingly, a strong seasonal bias was introduced in our understanding of sub-Arctic plankton communities. We observed two periods with considerable contribution of meroplankton, the planktonic larvae of benthic invertebrates, to the mesozooplankton biomass: (a) Cirripedia nauplii accounted for 17% of total biomass close to the coast in early April and (b) meroplankton comprised up to 12.7% of total biomass in late July. Based on these results, we suggest that meroplankton may play an ecologically important role in addition to their role in dispersal of benthic species. We conclude that the seasonal succession of the biomass of small-sized holoplankton and meroplankton, often obscured by patterns in the biomass, should receive more attention as these smaller individuals are likely an important functional component of the pelagic food web.
由于其生物量优势和营养作用，高纬度生态系统中的中型浮游动物研究往往侧重于特定物种的不同生命阶段。然而，丰富的小型中型浮游动物类群复杂的季节性演替表明，中型浮游动物群落的生态功能更为复杂。我们基于福尔马林保存的样本，研究了亚北极大陆架上全年特定分类群的中型浮游动物生物量测量和大小分布。我们的结果证实，特定物种在中型浮游动物生物量中占主导地位（81%）。我们表明，常用的体长-体重关系低估了秋季和冬季的生物量，因此，在我们对亚北极浮游生物群落的理解中引入了强烈的季节性偏差。我们观察到两个时期，底栖无脊椎动物的浮游幼虫——终生浮游生物对中型浮游动物生物量有相当大的贡献：（a）4月初，藤壶无节幼体在靠近海岸处占总生物量的17%；（b）7月底，终生浮游生物占总生物量的比例高达12.7%。基于这些结果，我们认为终生浮游生物除了在底栖物种扩散中发挥作用外，可能还具有重要的生态作用。我们得出结论，小型终生浮游生物和终生浮游生物生物量的季节性演替，常常被特定物种生物量的模式所掩盖，应该得到更多关注，因为这些较小的个体可能是海洋食物网的重要功能组成部分。
