The abundance and diversity of Persian Gulf macrozooplankton in the coastal waters of Khuzestan and Bushehr Provinces

According to the importance of macrozooplankton in food chain, this study was conducted with the aim of investigating the abundance and diversity of macrozooplankton in the coastal waters of Khuzestan and Bushehr provinces in the winter of 2021. For this purpose, 11 stations were sampled using 300 micrometers mesh size plankton net equipped with a flowmeter in the middle third of the net opening between the center and the edge of the net. In total, 2537.509±5.85 number per m2 of zooplankton belonging to 51 species, 27 genera, 29 families, 13 orders, 12 classes, and 5 phylum of zooplanktons were identified and counted. Arthropods phylum in the coastal waters of Khuzestan and Bushehr provinces was the predominant macrozooplankton phylum with 99.56% and 98.91%, respectively. No significant difference was observed between the coastal waters of the two mentioned provinces in the abundance and diversity of macrozooplankton (p>0.05), which can be caused by the similarity of the characteristics of the sampled areas and the homogeneity of the environment. However, there was a significant difference in the abundance of macrozooplankton among the investigated stations in each province (p<0.05), which is caused by the influence of environmental and nutritional conditions. The lower level of the Shannon and margalef indices in Khuzestan province indicates more stress in the region. Therefore, it is necessary to continuously monitoring and measuring environmental factors and pollutants in the coastal waters of Khuzestan and Bushehr provinces for four seasons to determine the most important factor of stress.