Early winter mesozooplankton of the coastal south-eastern Barents Sea

• Identified 3 mesozooplankton communities based on NMDS analysis.
• Young copepodites were found in the mesozooplankton.
• River run-off was the main factor determining development of copepods taxa.

The south-eastern Barents Sea (Pechora Sea) is a little studied region of the Russian Arctic. We investigated mesozooplankton community of this area in early winter period for the first time. The study was based on collections performed with a Juday net (168 μm) in November 2010. Three types of stations differing in mesozooplankton composition and abundance were revealed by non-metric multidimensional scaling analyses. Taxa richness and diversity of the mesozooplankton were high. The total abundance and biomass varied from 931 to 4360 individuals m−3 and from 4.0 to 64.2 mg dry mass m−3, respectively. Maximum density of mesozooplankton was located in the hydrographical frontal zone where cold and warm waters interacted. Copepods dominated in terms of the total abundance. Abundances of major taxa were strongly correlated with environmental variables, of which temperature, salinity and depth were the most important. Previous studies showed that many mesozooplankton are in a dormant state during the Arctic winter from October to April. However, our investigation found young copepodites to be present for many of the common copepod species, which suggests successful reproduction of some opportunistic taxa (Pseudocalanus, Acartia, Temora, Oithona) and that the small copepod community was in an active phase. The main factor influencing possible development of the copepods in the south-eastern Barents Sea was river run-off which supplied plankton with detritus and suspended organic matter.