ZOOPLANKTON RETAINED IN SEQUENTIAL SEDIMENT TRAPS ALONG THE BEAUFORT SEA SHELF BREAK DURING WINTER

Zooplankton retained in four sediment traps deployed along the shelf b reak of the eastern Beaufort Sea, from September 1987 to March 1988, w ere used to investigate temporal and regional variations of the zoopla nkton community during winter. Despite trap selectivity, the species c omposition indicated that both the shelf community and Atlantic water community of the deep Arctic Ocean are excluded from the shelf break a t this time of year. There was no evidence of off-shelf transport duri ng the study period. Taxa collected, predominantly pteropods (Spiratel la helicina) and calanoid copepods, were typical of the community in t he upper 200 m of the central Arctic Ocean. The abundance of pteropods was strongly associated with ice cover. The easternmost trap, located at the entrance to Amundsen Gulf, had a distribution of animals disti nct from those in the other traps. It lay outside the influence of the Beaufort Gyre and Beaufort Undercurrent, which apparently affected th e other locations.