Zoological Studies

Calanoid Copepods of the Kuroshio Current East of Taiwan, with Notes on the Presence of Calanus jashnovi Huslemann, 1994

Shih-Hui Hsiao, Chun-Yein Lee, Chang-tai Shih, Jiang-Shiou Hwang (2004) In this work, part of a project on the species composition and distribution of planktonic calanoid copepods in the section of the Kuroshio Current east of Taiwan, we studied samples taken by plankton net towed obliquely from depths of 200 to 0 m and 800 to 0 m. We identified 144 species of calanoids in total, with 111 species in the 200~0-m samples and 96 in the 800~0-m samples. There were 63 species in common in samples from the 2 depths, with 48 species found only in the shallow and 33 species only in the deep samples. Elimination of species known to be widely distributed in the northwestern Pacific Ocean from our species list produced a short list of 24 species. Nine of these species, predominant in the 200~0-m samples, were determined to be related to southerly waters and 12 species, mainly in the 800~0-m samples, were determined to be affiliated with northerly waters. Another 3 species, Pareucalanus langae, Heterorhabdus spinosus, and Spinocalanus usitatus, are new to the northwestern Pacific. Calanus jashnovi, an inhabitant of the transitional waters in the northwestern Pacific and frequently appearing in our 800~0-m samples, is considered to be an indicator species of the North Pacific Intermediate Water.