Secondary Production 
Secondary producers are the animal communities, either herbivorous 
or carnivorous, that consume the organic carbon in an area. A simplified 
food web for the bay is shown in Figure 4. Ideally, one should be able 
to measure the amount of fish or crab biomass produced over a period to 
time; this is total secondary production. Data on secondary production 
in Tampa Bay have not been generated accurately. 
In order to understand how the bay works, it will be important to 
quantify both the types and amounts of primary and secondary production. 
Simply having large amounts of both may not necessarily be ideal. A bay 
ecosystem with a large variety of plant and animal species actually may 
require less organic material input. The typical "green pea soup" 
appearance of a polluted pond or sewage treatment plant lagoon is an 
example of high primary production that also indicates an unbalanced 
system. Proper management of Tampa Bay to provide stable, balanced 
populations without abnormal algal blooms and fish kills will require a 
better understanding of both primary and secondary production. 
The most extensive study of holoplankton to date (Hopkins 1977) 
provides much useful data, but the author emphasized that collections 
were taken only the the surface of the bay once every three months 
(quarterly) for one year. The data are of limited value in describing 
long term cycles but are essential as a first step in describing the 
general characteristics of the bay zooplankton. Thirty-seven species of 
holoplankton were identified in the study, and were grouped into three 
categories based on abundance. Mean biomass of all zooplankton was 39.6 
mg dry wt/m 3 . The dominant species were three copepods ( Qithona 
colcarva, Acartia tonsa , Paracalanus crassirostris h which made up 56% of 
the zooplankton biomass. 
Meroplankton is composed of two groups, invertebrate and fish 
meroplankton (ichthyoplankton). Meroplankton data for Tampa Bay have 
been summarized by Weiss and Phillips (1985). Hopkins (1977), in 
sampling for holoplankton, found that 19% of total zooplankton number and 
8% of the total biomass (3.2 g dry wt/m 3 ) were meroplankton. 
The benthic community consists of animals that live in the 
sediment as infauna by burrowing or forming permanent or semi-permanent 
tubes extending just above the sediment surface; animals that live on the 
sediment surface either as mobile epifauna or sedentary epifauna; and 
animals that form specialized communities such as oyster reefs or 
live-bottom communities. 
Taylor (1973), Simon (1974), and Simon and Mahadevan (1985) 
summarized the benthic studies conducted in Tampa Bay. These studies 
have resulted in the following general conclusions regarding this group 
of invertebrates in Tampa Bay: 
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