Study on biological oceanography charateristics of planktonic copepods in waters north of Taiwan. II. Community characteristics

The paper is the succession of the study on abundance distribution of planktonic copepods in the waters north of Taiwan, and the emphasis is laid on the analysis and discussion of the constructions and features of copepod community and the relationships with water environment. The results show as follows: a total of 237 species were identified and the construction of communtity was complex. The percentage of annual present species was only 32%. The mean values of diversity and homogeneity of the copepod community were 3. 714 and 0. 690 respectively, and their horizontal distribution patterns were higher in outshore area than in nearshore area. The copepods of the area could be divided into five ecotypes. Warm-water outshore high temperature and lower saline group and tropic oceanic high temperature and saline group could indicate the seasonal changes of the Taiwan Strait water and the Kuroshio surface water respectively. According to the various aspects of calculation and analysis, winter was different from other three seasons in environmental conditions. In spring, summer and autumn, Undinula valgaris was the most dominant species and salinity was the main factor that affected the community feature values. The communities in the three seasons had the subtropic-tropic characteristics in which warm-water outshore species were dominant and tropic oceanic species accounted for also certain proportion. While in winter, the dominant species was Euchaeta marina and temperature was the main factor influencing the community feture values. The community had the tropic oceanic characteristics in which tropic oceanic species were dominant.