Abstract
Correction: Table 1 and Table 2 were omitted in from the PDF of this article. On 29th April 2015 the two tables were included in the PDF and the page numbers were changed from 151-158 to 151-160.Eight groups of zooplankton were found at Sitakunda coast, Chittagong, northeastern part of the Bay of Bengal during January to June 2007. The identified groups were Appendicularia (2.46%), Chaetognatha (2.45%), Cladocera (2.31%), Copepoda (26.05%), Ctenophora (5.86%), Crustacean zooplankton (21.64%), Ichthyoplankton (17.77%) and Meroplankton (21.45%). Abundance of zooplankton varied from 413 to 7730 individuals/m3.Mangrove vegetate area (station- VI) has the highest abundant possibly due to the organic and inorganic matters dissolved in the water while ship breaking area (station- IV) has the lowest abundant. Zooplankton population was significantly (p>0.05) higher in the mangrove vegetate area than the fishermen community area and ship breaking area. The mangrove vegetate area has the highest composition (57.06%) of zooplankton than the fishers community area and ship breaking area (29.77% and 13.16%, respectively). Calanus sp. (12.29%) belonging to Copepods and fish eggs (9.25%) belonging to Ichthyoplankton were the most abundant and Oikopleura albicans (0.66%) from Appendicularia, Metapenaeus brevicornis (0.71%) and Metapenaeus monoceros (0.90%) belonging to Crustacean larvae were the lowest abundant species found at three major investigated area.Res. Agric., Livest. Fish.2(1): 151-160, April 2015
Highlights
Zooplankton is an aquatic animal community that has limited swimming capacity against the ambient currents
In total 10 known species of Crustacean, 7 known and unidentified species of Meroplankton, 6 species of Copepoda, each 2 species of Appendicularia, Ctenophora and Ichthyoplankton and each one species of Cladocera and Chaetognatha were identified during the investigation
Appendicularia This class includes Oikopleura albicans and O. dioica, comprising together 2.46 % of the total zooplankton population. They live in the pelagic zone, especially in the upper sunlight portion of the ocean. These zooplanktons were found in all stations, but in low number (63 indi/m3) was observed in the Bhatiyari area near the ship breaking yard and large number (1150 indi/m3) were observed in the mangrove vegetate area
Summary
Zooplankton is an aquatic animal community that has limited swimming capacity against the ambient currents Even with their quite limited swimming capacity, they carry out day-night periodic movements of hundreds of meters. They prefer to feed at night on the water surface and effectively graze the phytoplankton, and they referred to as living machines. They habitually represent a vital link between the microbial portion and the large grazers (Laval-Peuto et al, 1986; Pierce and Turner, 1994).The zooplankton, secondary consumer plays a key role in the food chain of aquatic ecosystem by transferring energy from phytoplankton to higher tropic levels leading to the production of fisheries to human exploitation. In the aquatic ecosystem zooplankton are being used as the indicator species for the physical, chemical and biological processes due to their universal distribution, small size, and rapid metabolic and growth rates (Heinbokel, 1978; Fenchel, 1987), huge density, tinier life span, drifting nature, great species diversity and diverse tolerance to the stress (Gajbhiye, 2002)
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