IDENTIFICATION AND ABUNDANCE ESTIMATION OF PLANKTONIC COPEPODS IN KHOOR-E-MUSA CREEK

This project was carried out in the Khoor-e-Musa creek near Bandar Imam Khomeini from December 1996 to February 1998, with a view to studying the abundance and dominance of the Copepod community in the area. Monthly sampling was done in four stations from December 1996 to September 1997 and subsequantly samples were collected from al11he stations also in December 1997 and February 1998. Horizontal and vertical samplings (from 20 m depth to the surface layer) was carried out.
Totally 16 genera of planktonic copepods were observed, of which, 11 genera belonged to Calanoida, 2 genera to Harpacticoida and Poecilostomatoida, and one genus to Cyclopoida.
The most dominant genera was Acartia with relative abundance of 75.9% and the least dominant was Corycaeus with 0.002%. ANOV A did not show any significant difference in abundance among the stations. But among months ANOVA showed significant differance (a = 0.05). The peak density was observed in May. The T -test showed significant difference between column and surface densities only in February 1997 (a = 0.05).
Temperature, pH, D.O and salinity in four sampling stations showed no significant differences. But ANOV A showed significant differances for pH and temperature (a=0.05), in different months.