Zooplankton Community Along the Sava River

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine for the first time the composition of zooplankton community along the greatest part of the Sava River flow. Eighty two zooplankton taxa were collected at the Sava River in September of 2012, 7 Rhizopoda, 8 Ciliophora, 57 Rotifera, 7 Cladocera, 2 Copepoda, and 1 Bivalvia. The number of zooplankton species found at sampling sites varied between 2 and 30. The most diverse group was Rotifera, which comprised 69, % of the total number of recorded taxa. The abundance of zooplankton was low and the abundance of individual zooplankton communities varied between 1 and 36 ind/L, and these results are in accordance with the results of previous works. The similarity indices (Sørensen’s and Jaccard’s) between the localities studied were rather low, despite relatively close distances between them. The probable reason was that the sites were localized at the sections of the river characterized by different environmental factors.