Selectivity of plankton nets over mesozooplankton taxa: implications for abundance, biomass and diversity estimation

Submitted: 6 December 2011
Accepted: 6 December 2011
Published: 1 August 2010
Abstract Views: 2666
PDF: 1115
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Authors

The importance of the smaller copepod species is often underestimated as a result of the use of standard 200 μm mesh size nets, even though the small copepods probably represent the dominant component of the mesozooplankton community. Although the inadequacy of relatively coarse nets in providing reliable descriptions of the mesozooplankton assemblage is increasingly welldocumented, such nets continue to be commonly used. A major reason for this unwillingness to break with tradition is the belief that samples remain comparable even though the absolute values are biased. A one-year study of the abundance and size distribution of zooplankton collected in the Venice Lagoon using an 80 μm mesh size net showed an overwhelming abundance of small taxa. These data were used to derive estimates of the mesh selection effects of standard WP-2 nets on zooplankton abundance and biomass. Only 11% of numbers and 54% of biomass of lagoon zooplankton are likely to be caught with standard WP-2 nets. A comparison of seasonal changes in diversity, estimated from the fine and coarse datasets, confirmed that retention efficiency is seasonally dependent, which results in serious implications when extrapolating temporal patterns in community structure from WP-2 mesozooplankton counts.

Dimensions

Altmetric

PlumX Metrics

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Citations

How to Cite

RICCARDI, Nicoletta. 2010. “Selectivity of Plankton Nets over Mesozooplankton Taxa: Implications for Abundance, Biomass and Diversity Estimation”. Journal of Limnology 69 (2):287-96. https://doi.org/10.4081/jlimnol.2010.287.

Similar Articles

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.

List of Cited By :

Crossref logo