Seasonal Changes in Vertical Distribution and Population Structure of the Dominant Hydrozoan Aglantha digitale in the Western Subarctic Pacific

Abstract

Hydrozoans are numerically dominant taxa in gelatinous zooplankton communities of the worldwide oceans and play an energy transfer role connecting primary producers and higher trophic level organisms. In the western subarctic Pacific, St. K2 has been established as a long-term time-series monitoring station. Various studies on zooplankton have been conducted, while hydrozoans have not been treated. This study presents the abundance, vertical distribution, and population structure of the dominant hydrozoan species (Aglantha digitale) at St. K2. Samples collected by vertical stratification samplings from eight layers of 0–1000 m both day and night during four seasons in one year. Hydrozoans occur throughout the year. The annual mean abundance of A. digitale was 198.4 ind. m−2 and composed of 91.9% of hydrozoans. The vertical distribution of A. digitale was concentrated for the epipelagic layer (0–200 m), both day and night of the most season. The bell height (BH) of A. digitale ranged between 2.4–18.9 mm. Most of the mature individuals, with gonad length larger than 10% of BH, occurred only in July. The BH of mature individuals ranged from 4.7 to 17.6 mm, with the BH of most mature individuals were larger than >10 mm. Through observation on BH at each sampling layer, small individuals with BH < 6 mm were distributed below 300 m depths throughout the seasons, expanding their vertical distribution to the deeper layers. Inter-region comparison of abundance, maturation body size, and generation length of A. digitale revealed that these parameters are varied with the region and depend on the marine ecosystem structures.