Environmental Drivers of Temporal and Spatial Fluctuations of Mesozooplankton Community in Daya Bay, Northern South China Sea

The response of zooplankton to the ecological environment in Daya Bay is unclear under the influence of both climate changes and anthropogenic activities on a seasonal to inter-annual scale. Based on monthly surveys and historical data, we found the zooplankton community had changed temporally and spatially. A total of 134 species was recorded during the study, and copepods dominated numerically in terms of diversity and abundance. Both copepods and cladocerans were the main contributors to zooplankton abundance. The community structure of zooplankton was temporally classified into the warm and cold groups, and spatially into the three groups located in the marine cage-culture area (MCCA), the outflow of nuclear power plants (ONPP) and unpolluted waters (UPW). The zooplankton was characterized by low biomass (dry weight), high diversity and abundance in the warm period in contrast to that in the cold period. Compared with the other two groups, the MCCA group of zooplankton showed high abundance, low diversity and biomass. Variations in dominant species were closely related to temperature, salinity and chlorophyll a concentration. Species diversity and dry weight decreased in comparison with 30 years ago, while zooplankton abundance increased. The seasonal variation in zooplankton was affected mainly by temperature that was controlled by monsoon, while the spatial difference in the community structure was probably due to eutrophication in the MCCA and thermal water discharge from ONPP. The zooplankton community is undergoing great changes with the tendency of miniaturization and gelatinization in recent 30 years in Daya Bay.