Zooplankton of a Shallow Pond Under the Influence of a Colony of the Great Cormorant Phalacrocorax Carbo Sinensis (Blumenbach, 1798)

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

This study is dedicated to zooplankton of a shallow-water fish pond in the Penza region under the influence of great cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis (Blumenbach, 1798). In May, a larger number of zooplankter species were found in the control area of the pond (50) compared to the bird area (35). The pond was characterized by hypertrophic conditions, but the value of the trophic coefficient in the control was lower than in the cormorant area (28 and 40, respectively). The average abundance of zooplankton was higher in the control area; the biomass was lower in the cormorant area. Rotifera were dominated in the control, juvenile Cyclopoida and Rotifera were dominated in the bird area. In June, were found 21–22 species of zooplankton. The pond was still characterized by hypertrophic conditions, and the values of the trophic coefficient ranged from 23.8 in the cormorant's zone of influence to 54.0 in the control area. The maximum zooplankton abundance was observed in the area affected by birds, while high biomass values were observed in control area. Rotifera were a dominated taxonomic group of zooplankton in control area, and Copepoda were dominated in the cormorant area. This pond showed the bigger list of zooplankton species (42) compared to the first pond, Rotifera and Copepoda prevailed among the dominant organisms in terms of abundance, and Cladocera prevailed in terms of biomass.