Etude de la structure de taille des populations zooplanctoniques dans différents écosystèmes marins : Apports des nouveaux appareils automatisés d'observation

Study of zooplankton population size structure in different marine ecosystems : Contribution of new automatic systems for zooplankton observation

• Auteur / Autrice : Virginie Riandey
• Direction : François Carlotti, Gisèle Champalbert
• Type : Thèse de doctorat
• Discipline(s) : Sciences de l'environnement marin
• Date : Soutenance en 2005
• Etablissement(s) : Aix-Marseille 2
• Partenaire(s) de recherche : autre partenaire : Université d'Aix-Marseille II. Faculté des sciences

Mots clés

Mots clés contrôlés

Écologie marine

Zooplancton marin

Résumé

The goal of my PhD work (supported by the French Ministry of Education and Research) was to compare the information given by new and automatic systems for mesozooplankton observation (OPC, ZOOSCAN and Underwater Video Profiler-UVP) to those given by an approach more classical (dissecting microscope). The new systems provided fast size spectra from which both zooplankton abundance and biomass can be estimated. The dissecting microscope completed the previous observations by providing taxonomic data. This study was based on three sampling locations (Gulf of Guinea, Algerian Basin and Gulf of Lions). First, the whole dataset was used to perform calibration studies between automatic (OPC and ZOOSCAN) and traditional methods (counts, dry weights and C and N contents). Those calibrations permitted to specify the respective advantage of each method and also to define their optimal use and their complementarities in function of the established research objectives. Secondly, OPC and UVP data were used to study the variations of zooplankton size structure at different spatial (i. E. Gyres, intern waves) and temporal (i. E. Seasonal, diel) scales. I showed that, in the Gulf of Guinea (PICOLO campaign), oceanic long waves creating large anticyclonic eddies had a strong impact on zooplankton descriptors (size structure, biomass and composition), favoring secondary production. I also demonstrated that, in the Algerian basin (ELISA campaign), mesoscale hydrodynamic features such as cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies had different impacts on zooplankton descriptors depending mainly on the structure and on the localization in such structure (Riandey, 2005b). In the Gulf of Lions (Mediterranean Sea), I studied also the spatial (DICAMUF campaign) and temporal (temporal coastal survey) variability of zooplankton descriptors. My results showed that the zooplankton community was organized following a gradient from the coast to the open-ocean and that it followed also seasonal cycles with high variations between 2002 and 2003. This work showed that, in the whole, zooplankton size structure allowed detecting changes in the structure of the zooplankton community at different temporal and spatial scales. Moreover, it also pointed out that a link between diversity and size structure of mesozooplankton existed. Size structure appeared therefore a good indicator of changes in an ecosystem.