Use of Site

You can start looking at the website on any tab, but a basic roadmap for the website is to collect zooplankton, identify them using the interactive key (Identify or Browse tabs), enter their occurrence in atlas (Atlas tab), and use atlas to see where else they have been found.

• Zooplankton can be found in classroom collections, or collected off a dock or ship with dipnets or by taking a plankton net sample. Most zooplankton species are best seen with a microscope at 10 to 30 times magnification. Live zooplankton are definitely worth a look to see their bright colors and intriguing swimming behaviors. Most folks need to slow the animals down to get a good look at them for identification. The best anesthetic is MS222, used for ectotherms (cold blooded) animals. If you would like to keep your animals longer, they need to be fed, or preserved. (See Johnson and Allen, 2012) for details about collecting and preserving zooplankton.)
  
  
• Use the Identify tab to identify a species through the use of an illustrated, interactive key. You can also use the Atlas (Atlas tab) to find a list of species that have been found by others in the region, and this may help you narrow down the possibilities for species in the identification process.
  
  
• After species are identified, their names, location and date collected can be entered into the zooplankton atlas, where other people have entered the same information for previous collections. With a click of the mouse, pictures and scientific articles about your species can also be found.
  
  

  Literature Cited

  1. Johnson, W.S. and D.M. Allen. Zooplankton of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, A Guide to Their Identification and Ecology, Second Edition, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  
  
  

• Project 1. When do ctenophores become abundant in the spring and summer? Ctenophores and fish larvae are major predators of copepods. Ctenophores in Narragansett Bay, RI, became abundant in late summer, but in the 1990s they became abundant earlier (Sullivan et al. 2001). With earlier increases in ctenophores, food chains are changing because the ctenophores predation on copepod populations decreased the copepods during a time when fish larvae depend on them for food. Farther south in Chincoteague Bay, ctenophores are also very abundant during the summer but when does their population increase start and what are the consequences for food chains? By recording the time and location of ctenophores sightings, we can begin to study these interactions. Scientists are documenting large ctenophore and jellyfish blooms which potentially can outcompete fish populations for smaller zooplankton prey (Purcell 2005). Ctenophores can be observed from docks especially by their bioluminescence at night, or collected with plankton nets and at time get caught along with fish in otter trawls.
  
  
• Project 2. When and where do tunicate blooms occur? Doliolid and salp tunicates can be very abundant during from July to October and potentially impact food chains by eating and decreasing phytoplankton populations. Tunicates are especially competitive with other grazers since they can eat most types and sizes of phytoplankton from cyanobacteria to diatoms. Predicting location and timing of tunicate blooms in coastal waters depends on wind patterns and ocean currents to bring them from slope or Gulf Stream waters to nearshore coastal waters (Ambler et al. 2013). During the Fourth of July weekend in 2004, salps were extremely abundant in Chincoteague Bay and swimming areas off Assateague Island beaches. Noting the location and date that salps and doliolids are present in nearshore coastal waters gives clues to further understand the conditions when they are abundant.
  
  
• Project 3. When do you see Polygordius larvae and why does their abundance vary from year to year? The larvae of marine invertebrates are meroplankton, which means that they spend only their larval stages as plankton and as adults become strong swimmers like fish or bottom dwelling benthic organisms like crabs, oysters, mussels, sponges, polycheate worms. Although the larger juvenile and adult stages may be identified, the smaller larval stage may be unknown because they only occur for a short time and their occurrence is unpredictable from year to year. Recently Balci-Ramey and Ambler (2014) identified the larval stages of P. jouinae and at least one other Polygordius sp. Understanding the causes of yearly variation in abundance and timing of larval stages is a general problem, with implications for species that are bio-indicators such as Polygordius spp., and species in commercial fisheries: blue crab, hard clams and striped bass larvae. Planktonic larvae must be collected with plankton nets to see.
  
  

  Literature Cited

  1. Ambler, J.W., A. Kumar, T.A. Moisan, D.L.Aulenbach, M.C. Day, S.A. Dix, and M.A. Winsor. 2013. Seasonal and spatial patterns of Penilia avirostris and three tunicate species in the southern Mid-Atlantic Bight. Continental Shelf Research 69: 141-154.
  2. Purcell, J.E. 2005. Climate effects on formation of jellyfish and ctenophore blooms: a review. Journal Marine Biology Association of U.K. 85: 461-476.
  3. Ramey-Balci, P.A. and J.W. Ambler. 2014. Distribution and seasonal abundance of Polygordius spp. (Class: Polychaeta; Family: Polygordiidae) exo- and endolarvae in the southern Mid-Atlantic Bight, USA. Marine Biology 161: 1565-1581. DOI: 10.1007/s00227-014-2441-7
  4. Sullivan, B.K., D. Van Keuren, and M. Clancy. 2001. Timing and size of blooms of the ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi in relation to temperature in Narragansett Bay, RI. Hydrobiologia 451: 113-120.