Spatial and temporal variability in zooplankton community at Valdés Biosphere Reserve (Patagonia-Argentina): the Nuevo Gulf case study

NOCERA, ARIADNA CELINA; GONÇALVES, RODRIGO; D'AGOSTINO, VALERIA; SCHLOSS, IRENE

Congreso; WCMB; 2020

Zooplankton diversity has been identified as one of the biological Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) to detect temporal and spatial changes in marine biodiversity and ecosystem health. Golfo Nuevo (42° 42? S, 64° 30? W) is a semi-enclosed gulf surrounding Península Valdés, a World Heritage Site (UNESCO, 1999), where information about zooplankton community and its role is still scarce. We present preliminary results from a recently-started monitoring of the zooplankton community composition. We found that more than 57 % of the community (in terms of abundance) was composed by copepods, followed by cladocerans (24 %) in spring; while copepods represent more than 98 % of the total abundance in summer. These results disagree with previous works for this area, where copepods represented less than 5 % of the zooplankton community. There was a dominance of Copepoda Calanoida, mainly caused by high densities of Ctenocalanus vanus, especially in summer. In addition, we report for the first time the presence of a new copepod specie (Drepanopus forcipatus) for this gulf. Our study highlights the importance of zooplankton biodiversity monitoring to better represent and understand this coastal marine ecosystem.