Zooplankton (& their environment) off Vancouver Island in 2005 Warm (but not a lot warmer than 2004) Chlorophyll & nutrients low (but enhanced by JdeF estuarine discharge) Zoop biomass below normal Zoop community composition similar to (“southern” bias) Very poor seabird reproduction at Triangle Island colony (worst ever observed)

(W. Crawford, M. Robert, H. Freeland)

H. Freeland ARGO analysis

Zooplankton biomass Below average but better than the mid 90s

Zooplankton Community Composition 2005 was: Very bad for “boreal shelf” copepods Good for “southern” copepods Fair to poor for euphausiids, subarctic oceanic copepods, cool water chaetognaths

Some new “Southern” zooplankton (not the same mix as in 1990s) Acartia tonsa: appeared in 2003 now very abundant off SVI has spread north to BC/AK border ‘Sagitta’ euneritica & minima now common Nyctiphanes simplex NOT detected off BC South North

Strong covariance of Zooplankton, Temperature, and “Predators” “warm vs. cool” PC1 explains ~50% of normalized variance & correlations Time series of PC1 was: (+) & (-) (Mackas, Batten &Trudel MS