| Full-depth profiles of zooplankton numerical abundance and major taxa composition are presented with special attention to the dominant copepod fauna, for directly comparable data sets from sites to a depth of 4 300 m in the Levantine and Red Seas, which are also compared with the deep mid-latitude NE Atlantic. Copepods showed highest proportions of calanoids, cyclopoids sensu lato and harpacticoids in the 333 mum net subsurface samples from the Atlantic. Among the calanoids as the predominant group, there was a distinctly disproportionate, extended and depth-related sequence of zonal dominance by one single species of a family each at mesopelagic and bathypelagic depths in the Levantine Sea and the Red Sea. The mass occurrence of dormant Eucalanus monachus... |
