L.V. Stelmakh

The A.O. Kovalevsky Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2, Nakhimov av., Sevastopol 99011, Crimea, Ukraine
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Marine Science, 2013, Vol. 3, No. 15   doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0015
Received: 28 Feb., 2013    Accepted: 29 Mar., 2013    Published: 01 Apr., 2013

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Stelmakh, 2013, Microzooplankton Grazing Impact on Phytoplankton Blooms in the Coastal Seawater of the Southern Crimea (Black Sea), International Journal of Marine Science, Vol.3, No.15 121-127 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0015)

The investigation of seasonal dynamics of microzooplankton specific grazing rate was carried out in the near-shore sea off the southern Crimea (Black Sea) during 2006~2007 and 2010. It is shown that microzooplankton grazing depended on the abundance and quality of prey. The favorite prey items were diatoms Skeletonema costatum and Chaetoceros spp. When microzooplankton grazed less than 80% of the primary production, the peaks of phytoplankton biomass were recorded in this study. The average annual removal of primary production by microzooplankton was estimated as weighty as 65%. Such estimated values indicate the key role of the microzooplankton in exporting matter and energy from phytoplankton to higher trophic levels.  

Black Sea; Phytoplankton growth rate; Microzooplankton grazing; Chlorophyll-a