Abstract

MOJICA LOPEZ, Luz Helena  and  FRANCO-HERRERA, Andrés. Zooplankton composition and taxonomic abundance from South Pacific until Antarctic Peninsula 2016-2017. Bol. Invest. Mar. Cost. [online]. 2019, vol.48, n.2, pp.119-142.  Epub Dec 11, 2019. ISSN 0122-9761.  https://doi.org/10.25268/bimc.invemar.2019.48.2.769.

With the purpose of contributing to the knowledge of the zooplankton associated with the water masses present along a latitudinal gradient from Peru to the Antarctic Peninsula, 14 samples were obtained, with a conical net of 250 um mesh size and 60 cm of mouth diameter, towed from 0 to 200 m water depth, within the III Scientific Expedition of Colombia to Antarctica "Almirante Padilla" (Austral Summer 2016-2017). The results allowed to determine a total of 75 family/morphotypes (f/m), belonging to 32 orders. The orders Calanoida (20%) and Perciformes (12%) predominated in this study. Fish eggs and larvae, in addition to bivalves, and cypris, salps and other gelatinous organisms contributed with 54% of importance. In relation to density, the families of the subclass Copepoda, Calanidae, Paracalanidae, Clausocalanidae, Oncaeidae and Eucalanidae were the most representative. Calanidae family showed the highest density across the latitudinal gradient, with values between 1594 ind • 100 m-3 and 6057 ind • 100 m-3. The highest densities of zooplankton were for the South Pacific, where differences were found with respect to the densities in the Antarctic stations (Mood: 1.4 p-value: 0.24 α 0.05 and 95% confidence). However, the cluster analysis showed an association between stations in relation to abundance of zooplankton in this study and found a Pearson correlation of 0.95 with this it can be concluded that if there is an ecological connectivity between the mesozooplankton community along the South Pacific, which is attributed to the system of currents that plays an important role in the distribution of this community, as well as events of deep water upwellings that allow to find cosmopolitan families.

Keywords : Zooplankton; Antarctica; South Pacific; Connectivity.

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