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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SIZE OF NET USED AND ESTIMATES OF ZOOPLANKTON DIVERSITY 1
Author(s) -
John A. McGowan,
Vernie J. Fraundorf
Publication year - 1966
Publication title -
limnology and oceanography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 197
eISSN - 1939-5590
pISSN - 0024-3590
DOI - 10.4319/lo.1966.11.4.0456
Subject(s) - zooplankton , abundance (ecology) , environmental science , relative species abundance , taxon , statistics , ecology , mathematics , biology
Previous studies of the efficiency of zooplankton nets of various mouth sizes in estimating abundance do not provide information on the nets’ abilities to obtain samples for estimates of the number of species present or diversity. Further, most of these studies have not discriminated between the effects of patchiness and avoidance. To provide information on these problems, four series of tows were taken with nets of 20‐, 40‐, 60‐, 80‐, 100‐, and 140‐cm mouth diameters. An attempt was made to filter the same volume of water on each tow. All tows were taken while following a drogue which tended to drift with a particular parcel of water. The numbers of species and of individuals per species in each tow were determined for seven taxa. A concordance analysis of these data showed that estimates of both numbers of species and species abundance were smaller with the smaller nets. The smaller nets also yielded less diverse samples. These results can best be interpreted in terms of avoidance.