Studies on growth rate and grazing mortality rate by microzooplankton of size-fractionated phytoplankton in spring and summer in the Jiaozhou Bay, China

Dilution experiments were performed to examine the growth rate and grazing mortality rate of size-fractionated phytoplankton at three typical stations, inside and outside the bay, in the spring and summer of 2003 in the Jiaozhou Bay, China, In spring, the phytoplankton community structure was similar among the three stations, and was mainly composed of nanophytoplankton, such as, Skeletonema costatum and Cylindrotheca closterium. The structure became significantly different for the three stations in summer, when the dominant species at Stas A, B and C were Chaetoceros curvisetus, Pseudo-nitzschia delicatissima, C. affinis, C. debilis, Coscinodiscus oculus-iridis and Paralia sulcata respectively. Tintinnopsis beroidea and T. tsingtaoensis were the dominant species in spring, whereas the microzooplankton was apparently dominated by Strombidium sp. in summer. Pico- and nanophytoplankton had a relatively greater growth rate than microzooplankton both in spring and summer. The growth rate and grazing mortality rate were 0.18-0.44 and 0.12-1.47 d ^-1 for the total phytoplankton and 0.20-0.55 and 0.21-0.37 d ^-1 for nanophytoplankton in spring respectively. In summer, the growth rate and grazing mortality rate were 0.38-0.71 and 0.27-0.60 d ^-1 for the total phytoplankton and 0.11-1.18 and 0.41-0.72 d ^-1 for nano- and microphytoplankton respectively. The carbon flux consumed by microzooplankton per day was 7.68-39.81 mg/m³ in spring and 12.03-138.22 mg/m³ in summer respectively. Microzooplankton ingested 17.56%-92.19% of the phytoplankton standing stocks and 31.77%-467.88% of the potential primary productivity in spring; in contrast, they ingested 34.60%-83.04% of the phytoplankton standing stocks and 71.28%-98.80% of the potential primary productivity in summer. Pico- and nanophytoplankton appeared to have relatively greater rates of growth and grazing mortality than microphytoplankton during the experimental period. The grazing rate of microzooplankton in summer was a little bit greater than that in spring because of the relatively higher incubation temperature and different dominant microzooplankton species. Microzooplankton preferred ingesting nanophytoplankton to microphytoplankton in spring, while they preferred ingesting picophytoplankton to nanophytoplankton and microphytoplankton in summer. Compared with the results of dilution experiments performed in various waters worldwide, the results are in the middle range.