On Zooplankton of Some Arctic Coastal Lagoons of Northwestern Alaska, 
with Description of a New Species of Eurytemora 
Martin W. Johnson 1 
A CHARACTERISTIC FEATURE of the low-lying 
Alaskan coast of the Chukchi Sea is the presence 
of a more or less broken beadlike series of 
"lagoons” extending from Cape Prince of Wales 
to Point Barrow. The general scientific interest 
in these lagoons is succinctly summarized by 
R. H. Fleming and staff in a preliminary report 
on the "Brown Bear” cruise no. 236 in 1959: 
The geological and oceanographic processes that 
have led to development and life history of these 
features are of major scientific interest. Because 
each of them may represent a variable but 
unique micro-environment, the biology of these 
lagoons is also of unusual interest because they 
represent a transitional series of marine to fresh- 
water environments. At one extreme these 
lagoons are, in effect, the complex estuaries of 
rivers that flow only during the summer. At 
the other extreme the older lagoons, now per- 
manently isolated from the sea and clogged with 
sediment and vegetation, are only distinguish- 
able from aerial photographs. Between these 
two extremes are bodies of water, varying 
greatly in size, that must from time to time be 
flooded with sea water and then are closed off 
again and slowly diluted by the accumulation 
of precipitation and runoff. 
During August 4-15, 1959, an opportunity 
was provided by the U. S. Atomic Energy Com- 
mission’s Committee for Environmental Studies 
of Project Chariot and the University of Wash- 
ington Department of Oceanography 2 to con- 
duct a survey of the plankton in a number of 
these more or less landlocked lagoons situated 
at the immediate coast in the region of Cape 
Thompson, Alaska. The samples collected, be- 
ing from various lagoons, are important in pro- 
viding a broad picture of the deviations or 
1 Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of 
California, La Jolla, and the University of Washing- 
ton, Department of Oceanography, Seattle. Contribu- 
tion from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, New 
Series. Manuscript received September 12, I960. 
2 Contract AT-45-1-540 and Nonr-477 (10). 
similarities that characterize the populations of 
these bodies of water. The fauna encountered 
are of special interest in furthering our knowl- 
edge of the geographic distribution, biology, 
and taxonomic status of certain calanoid cope- 
pod species that are in varying degrees transi- 
tional between the purely marine and fresh- 
water forms. 
Prior to the initiation of this project, there 
had apparently been no study of the zooplank- 
ton of these remote and relatively inaccessible 
lagoons. Some studies that provide especially 
useful records for comparison have been made 
previously of the offshore plankton of the Alas- 
kan coast of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas 
(Willey, 1920; Johnson, 1953, 1956), and in 
ponds situated at Point Barrow (Comita and 
Edmondson, 1953; Comita, 1956; Johnson, 
1958) . Coincident with the present restricted 
study, a general plankton survey was made in 
the offshore waters of portions of Chukchi and 
Bering seas by members of the University of 
Washington Oceanographic Department aboard 
the "Brown Bear” (R. H. Fleming and staff, 
1959) . 
It is a pleasure to thank Dr. Richard H. Flem- 
ing for providing this opportunity to participate 
in the research expedition of the University of 
Washington oceanographic vessel "Brown 
Bear” to the Chukchi Sea area. The assistance 
of Dr. Norman J. Wilimovsky, Philip Buscemi, 
and Howard Smith in the field is gratefully 
acknowledged, as is also the cooperation of the 
administrators and contractors of the project 
site. The water samples were titrated for chlo- 
rinity by the Geological Survey laboratory at 
the project camp site. 
PROCEDURE AND RESULTS 
The plankton samples were collected with a 
30 -cm. net, 1 m. long, constructed of no. 6 
bolting cloth. An 
311 
inflated rubber boat was used 
Institution AUG i M 
