4.0 PLANKTON 



by 



Stephen Grabe, Doreen Newhouse, David Pease, and Neil Savage 

 Normandeau Associates, Inc. 

 Bedford, N. H. 



INTRODUCTION 



New Haven Harbor provides an extremely fertile habitat for 

 phytoplankton due to its proximity to terrestrial nutrient sources and 

 the protection against dispersal afforded by the configuration and 

 shallowness of the harbor. Harbor waters also support substantial 

 zooplankton and ichthyoplankton populations that ultimately depend on 

 phytoplankton for food. Since most finfish and many benthic inverte- 

 brates, such as crabs and oysters, spend a portion of their lives in the 

 plankton, any change in planktonic populations affects not only the food 

 available to subsequent levels in the food web but also the magnitude of 

 larval recruitment to adult populations of many aquatic animals. 



Plankton investigations in southern New England waters in 

 proximity to New Haven Harbor were begun by Yale University's Bingham 

 Oceanographic Laboratory during the late 1930' s. An early report by 

 Riley (1941) focused on north central Long Island Sound. Between 1943 

 and 1949, investigative emphasis by the Bingham Laboratory shifted to 

 Block Island Sound resulting in studies on phytoplankton (Riley, 1952) , 

 zooplankton (Deevey, 1952a; 1952b) , and ichthyoplankton (Merriman and 

 Sclar, 1952) . A broad-scale survey of Long Island Sound conducted 

 between 1952 and 1954 included studies on phytoplankton (S. Conover, 

 1956) , zooplankton (R. Conover, 1956; Deevey, 1956) and ichthyoplankton 

 (Wheatland, 1956) . Results of subsequent studies of the Long Island 

 Sound plankton community in 1954 and 1955 were reported by Riley and 

 Conover (1967) for phytoplankton and by Richards (1959) for ichthy- 

 oplankton. Data from an additional ichthyoplankton survey conducted 

 from April 1964 through May 1966 in the vicinity of Old Field Point near 

 the southern shore of Long Island Sound, were reported by Williams 

 (1968) . 



4-1 



