Interaction between neritic and warm water tintinnids in surface waters of East China Sea

Tintinnid are important microzooplankton in marine pelagic habitats. In the temperate shelf area, tintinnid could be divided into neritic, warm-water and cosmopolitan biogeographical types. Up to now, there is no understanding in the interaction between neritic and warm-water genera in shelf waters. Here we studied the interaction of neritic and warm-water tintinnids in East China Sea during three cruises (May, August and October) in 2013. Our hypothesis were (1) that the factors influencing the expansion of neritic and warm-water genera were different and (2) that different genera within each biogeographical type had different adaptation abilities in the process of expansion. Totally 94 species in 36 genera were identified in three cruises. According to the distribution of each tintinnid genus in the three cruises, tintinnid genera were divided into three biogeographical types: neritic, warm-water and cosmopolitan. The data confirmed our hypothesis. The factor influencing neritic tintinnid species richness and abundance was water depth while salinity was the factor influencing species richness and abundance of warm-water tintinnids. According to the difference in their expansion ability, neritic and warm-water genera could be divided into core genera and pioneer genera. In the case of neritic genera, core and pioneer neritic genera stayed together in May and August while pioneer neritic genera expanded a lot out to the oceanic water in October. In the case of warm-water genera, the pioneer genera always expanded a lot out to the coast in all three cruises. In May and August, the pioneers of neritic and warm-water genera did not meet. However, in October, the cores of neritic and warm-water genera collided. Our data clearly showed that the core and pioneer of both neritic and warm-water genera interacted in different modes in different months. Whether the cores of neritic and warm-water genera will further mixed in winter is an open question. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.