Different-Scale Variations in the Abundance and Species Diversity of Metazoan Microzooplankton in the Coastal Zone of the Black Sea

Abstract—The short-term, seasonal, and interannual variations in the abundance and species composition of the Black Sea metazoan microzooplankton have been analyzed at the open coastal area and the mouth of Sevastopol Bay in 2009–2015. Whatever the time scale, the temperature factor played the main role in abundance variations. In particular, the coincidence of two-year periodicities in the sum of active temperatures and the abundance of copepod-invader Oithona davisae at the year-to-year scale have been demonstrated. Variations of wind speed and direction have been shown to be significant factors in the short-term variations of microzooplankton abundance. The general species diversity of the community was found to depend significantly on the abundance of the invader species.