Abstract: In the spring (April), summer (July), and autumn (October) of 2011, investigations with types Ⅰ and Ⅱ of plankton net were conducted on the zooplankton in Xiangshan Bay, with the species composition, abundance, and community structure of the dominant zooplankton group copepod analyzed. It was observed that the copepod species richness was the highest in summer (20 species), followed by in autumn (14 species) and in spring (10 species). The copepod abundance peaked in spring, and was lower in summer and autumn. Mesocopepod species Centropages mcmurrichi dominated in spring, while smaller copepods such as Acartia pacifica, Calanopia thompsoni, and Paracalanus parvus dominated in summer and autumn. According to the investigation data from type Ⅰ net, the copepod community could be divided into two subgroups, i.e., low temperature group in spring and high temperature group in summer-autumn. The combination of the environmental factors including sea surface temperature, surface nitrate, surface silicate, and bottom silicate had the most significant effects on the copepod community structure in the Bay (r=0.836), and each of the four prominent variables was significantly negatively correlated with copepod abundance (P=0.05). Overall, the copepod community in Xiangshan Bay had a significant seasonal variation, and an inter-annual variation was observed in the seasonal pattern of copepod, as compared with historical data.

Key words: fertilization, community structure, alpine meadow, redundancy analysis.