Diversity, composition, and abundance of zooplankton in the waters of Morella, Central Maluku, Indonesia

Abstract

Generally, conditioning of surrounding waters caused variability of the diversity, composition and abundance of zooplankton organism, therefore, this research conducted during the rainy season (July 2019) in the waters of Morella. The zooplankton weekly collected using zooplankton net at three stations for the three weeks (periods). Each station is water with different ecosystem and conditions (sea grass, coral reefs and recreation area in coral reef area). 29 genera of zooplankton were encountered, which consisted of 25 genera of holoplankton and 4 genera of meroplankton, The copepods dominated the group of holoplankton, and reached the average value of 4708 individuals/m3. The highest abundance of the zooplankton reached the numbers of 19047 individuals/m3 (St 1, first period), while the lowest was 2547 individuals/m3 (St. 3, third period). Diversity indices (H’) was in a range of 2.717-3.004, whilst the Evenness indices was ranging from 0.82-0.89 and the highest similarity indices was between station 1 and 3 (92.0%) and the lowest was between station 2 and 3 (83.64%). The Siphonophores species, Diphyes sp was the only genera, which found at station 3 from the whole periods of this research.