engleski

Unusual winter zooplankton bloom in the open southern Adriatic Sea

The paper reports an unusual response of the microzooplankton community to oceanographic conditions observed during the winter of 2015 at the open South Adriatic. Record-breaking nauplii abundance of 13 734 ind. m-3 was sampled for the open South Adriatic by 50 - µm net sampling. This could be explained by (i) warmer-than-usual surface and intermediate ocean temperatures, (ii) higher precipitation that freshened and widened surface layer, pushing saline Levantine Intermediate Water below 400 m depth, and (iii) strong wind episodes that transported nutrients from the coastal zone to the open ocean and induced limited vertical mixing. Neritic tintinnids and viable photoautotrophs well below the photic zone support the last possibility. Average seasonal maximum of zooplankton abundance is shifted from spring and early summer to late winter months. Our results are documenting large and fast variations of production conditions, rarely found to occur in oligotrophic waters such as the South Adriatic Sea.

tintinnids ; nauplii ; copepods ; primary production ; Eastern Mediterranean

nije evidentirano