FIRST CHARACTERIZATION OF THE PLANKTONIC COMMUNITY IN THE NORTHERN SECTOR OF THE JOINT REGIME AREA JAMAICA – COLOMBIA

Abstract

The Joint Regime Area Jamaica-Colombia (JRA) is a sector of economic importance for Colombia but its biodiversity is unknown due to the diffiult access. Therefore, the Institute of Marine and Coastal Research - Invemar in agreement with the National Hydrocarbon Agency - ANH, made an expedition in 2011 to obtain a fist approximation to the diversity of the JRA. Within the groups studied was the plankton, which was collected around landforms at 21 sampling stations in the northern sector of the JRA, with special plankton nets of 20 µm pore size mesh for phytoplankton and 200 µm for zooplankton. Organisms were identifid to the lowest possible taxonomic category and an ecological analysis was performed using descriptive statistics, univariate and multivariate. 183 morphospecies of phytoplankton and 57 taxa (family and phylum) of zooplankton were identifid, generating three geographically differentiated associations. The phyto and zooplankton found in the JRA is part of the plankton community typical of oligotrophic tropical oceanic waters and local differences could be due to ocean dynamics between the Caribbean Current Surface and landforms of the of San Andrés and JRA archipelago.