Meroplanktonic Stages of Anthozoa in the Indian Ocean

Abstract

The international collection of 1927 Zooplankton samples lodged at the Indian Ocean Biological Centre (IOBC) forms the basis for the present study. The geographical names used in the present report follow those adopted by the International Hydrographic Bureau (IHB) (Sp. Publ. 23, 1953). An aliquot of the catch, equalling about 3 to 4 ml of the plankton irrespective of sample size, was fractionated either with a Lea’s fractionator (Wiborg, 1955) or with a Folsom plankton splitter (Mc Even, Johnson and Folson, 1954) and sorted. From this aliquot the catch per unit haul is estimated and this is used for comparison of collections. Abundance indicates population density, the term population being used not in the ecological sense but in a statistical sense. Biomass is used here to mean wet Zooplankton displacement volume.