A review of the zooplankton in Singapore waters

24 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables

The island of Singapore is located between 1°09'N¿1°29'N and 103°38'E¿104°06'E at the confluence of the Malacca Straits and the South China Sea. To date, both the marine and freshwater zooplanktons of this area are poorly studied, and availability of taxonomic identification is scarce. Moreover, most of the studies were published between the 1950s to the beginning of the 1970s. The available data are mainly qualitative, with only a few studies on zooplankton biology and ecology. Here, the literature on zooplankton communities in Singapore waters is reviewed in order to provide a baseline for future zooplankton surveys, and to better understand the aquatic ecosystems of this area. Also included are recent data obtained from a one-year plankton monitoring in 2012 from two marine stations in Singapore. The temporal variation of the plankton groups was observed in the study to be similar to what was described in some works from the 1970s. The species richness increased in these more recent studies, probably due to changes in the sampling and preservation methods. Because of these changes, comparing between data-sets is challenging; however, similarities in species richness and seasonality between a recent study and previous data-sets were evident. Finally, it is argued that continuous marine plankton monitoring would be an asset for Singapore and the region

The authors would like to thanks the National Parks of Singapore, the DHI-NTU Research Centre for the financial support of project MadeInPlankton, where the present study is framed. The work was also supported by Elite Forsk grants nb 10-093759 and 10-094773 from the Danish Agency for Science Technology and Innovation to GD, and by project PROTOS (CTM2009-08783) from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation to AC

Peer Reviewed