Community structure and seasonal variation of zooplankton in macroalgae beds of the Naozhou Island from 2014 to 2015

Zooplankton community was seasonally carried out in the macroalgae beds of Naozhou Island of Guangdong,China,from April 2014 to January 2015.The species composition,dominant species,community structure,abundance and biomass of zooplankton and factors were analyzed.Totally,91species and36pelagic larvae groups,belonging to17large groups,were found in this sea area.The annual average density and biomass were186.5ind/ m3 and431.0mg/ m3 respectively,with the maximum in summer and the minimum in winter.The dominant species included19species.Zooplankton exhibited high in evenness(0.74)and high diversity indices(3.14).By hierarchical cluster analysis and non-metric multidimensional scaling(MDS)assisted analyzing,zooplankton in the area could be formed into four assemblages joining at a distance of 38%.The community exhibited bimodal annual variation trend.Within-group similarity or between-group dissimilarity of groups were all greater than50%and37types were major contributors.The biota-environment matching(BIOENV)an