Vertical distribution of suspended fecal pellets and potential fecal pellet production of the copepod community in the Ulleung Basin in the East/Japan Sea

Abstract

We investigated the vertical distribution of suspended fecal pellets (SFP) in water column and production of fecal pellets by copepod community to understand the importance of mesozooplankton fecal pellets in the carbon cycle in the Ulleung Basin, southwestern East/Japan Sea in July 2005. An anticyclonic warm eddy which has been known in the southwestern East/Japan Sea (Chang et al., 2004) existed in the center of the Ulleung Basin. The warm eddy was stratified with a seasonal thermocline and a strong subsurface chlorophyll maximum (SCM) layer in the center of the eddy was developed at 40 m depth. Experiments were made at two stations in the Ulleung Basin: D2 (at the periphery of the warm eddy) and D4 (inside the warm eddy).