Meiofauna in the Changjiang estuary and its adjacent area: an indicator of the intrusion of Kuroshio
Date:2019/03/26

Reporter:Qinghe Liu, Institute of Oceanology, Chines Academy of Sciences

Time:02/04, 2019 Tuesday

Location:IOO Meeting Room, Xuhui Campus

Abstract

As an important component of the benthic ecosystem and fine bioindicator of the environment, especially benthic harpacticoid, meiofauna has been used as an effective ways in monitoring the status of benthic ecosystems. The benthic ecosystem in the Changjiang estuary and its adjacent area is rather complex duo to the mixed affections of the Changjiang river discharge, Yellow Sea coastal current, nearshore upwelling and Kuroshio branch current. In order to reveal the community structure and distribution patterns of meiofauna, and find out their relationships with hydrological dynamics in this area, two cruises were carried out in Sep. and Dec. 2016.

According to the results, an average abundance of (1758 ± 759) ind./10cm2 and (2011 ± 1471)ind./10cm2 of meiofauna was found in Sep. and Dec., respectively. Nematodes were the most dominant groups (95.6%) in both cruises, followed by copepods, kinorhynchs and polychaetas. In the overlapping area of upwelling and ox-ygen minimum zone, meiofauna showed higher abundance than offshore sea area. The same patterns was also found in the nearshore area of Zhejiang province in the East China Sea. Moreover, the maximum abundance of meiofauna all distributed around 50m isobath, which was the pass way of nearshore Kuroshio branch current in the East China Sea. Accordingly, the intrusion of Kuroshio brings clean water with high dissolved oxygen and phosphorus in the East China Sea, which may promote the primary production in this area and stimulate the proliferation of meiofauna resulting higher abundance than other area. Further studies on the primary production of the water column and sediments are needed to reveal the relationship between food resource and abundance of meiofauna.

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