Distribution and structure of zooplankton communities in the austral summer in the Prydz Bay, Antarctica

As a structure linking the ecosystem and population, community plays an important role in the marine ecology. Abundance of different species and development stages were used in our classification to the sampling stations with clustering-analysis and multi-dimension scaling, through which three geographic communities were marked out, respectively as following: the Salp community characterized by presence of Salp thompni in the northern area, the Near-shore community by Euphausia crystallorophias in the south and the main ocean community located between the above two communities. Indicator species method was then carried out between every two communities to findout which species or stages differ most. It tells that Rhincalanus gigas, adult cheatognath, late stages of Metridia gerlachei and calyptopis of Euphausiidae are indicators between Salp and neritic communities, between Krill and Salp communities are Salp thompni, adult and larvae of Cheatognath and R. gigas, and the most notable indicator between the Krill and the neritic communities are E. crystallorophias, then nauplii of Euphausiidae and Onceae conifera with less evidence.