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.