Rationale:
The zooplankton of Florida Bay have received comparatively little attention; to date there is not a single published report quantitatively characterizing the resident population nor estimating their contribution to secondary production. One reason for this is that until recently the Bay was extremely clear and seagrasses (and their epiphytes) purportedly dominated primary production. To some this suggested that macroinvertebrates (and teleosts) grazing directly upon macrophytic plant production were the dominant trophic pathway between primary and secondary production. However, the Bay has historically supported large populations of teleost larvae (e.g., spotted sea trout), whose primary food (when they are small) are crustacean nauplii. Adjacent shallow water environments like Biscayne Bay support large populations of estuarine copepods like Acartia tonsa that supplement their phytoplankton diet with macrophytic plant detritus. Moreover, many macroinvertebrates (e.g. mollusks) have meroplanktonic stages that can be important food resources to larval fish. Last demersal zooplankton like amphipods or harpacticoids can be extremely abundant in shallow water marine systems. In short, zooplankton likely played a significant role in the Bay even when it was clear and phytoplankton blooms were rare. Given the decline in seagrass coverage and the increase in the areal extent and duration of phytoplankton blooms, the role of zooplankton both as consumers of phytoplankton and/or detritus and as food for ichthyoplankton may be changing.