Marine ecosystem health is under severe pressure. Therefore, scientific and effective evaluation indicators for its assessment and early warning are urgently required. Plankton is a sensitive indicator of ecosystem changes and is critical in the marine food web, supporting important ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and fishery production. Based on survey data of Jiaozhou Bay from 2003 to 2013, this study screened two types of zooplankton functional group indicators closely related to environmental changes: the dry weight biomass of traditional forage zooplankton (large crustaceans, large copepods, and small copepods), and the dry weight biomass proportion of gelatinous zooplankton (jellyfish, chaetognaths, and tunicates). These indicators represent the productivity level and stability of the functional group structure, respectively. According to the range and thresholds of the historical data, a graded evaluation standard was established. By constructing a two-dimensional coordinate plane based on zooplankton functional group indicators, according to the graded evaluation standard, the historical health status of the ecosystems in Jiaozhou Bay was classified into ecosystems with benign and risky development. These were further subdivided into seven types of health status, namely, rich-product, healthy-sustainable, benign-development, gelatinous-development, gelatinization, high-risk, and resource-scarce. This study provides a typical case using zooplankton functional groups as assessment indicators to establish an assessment system for offshore ecosystem health.
| 科 Family | 属数 Number of genus | 种数 Number of species | 占总种数比例 Percentage of total species (%) | 属 Genus | 种数 Number of species | 占总种数比例 Percentage of total species (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 鹅膏菌科Amanitaceae | 2 | 11 | 5.26 | 鹅膏菌属 Amanita | 10 | 4.78 |
| 小菇科 Mycenaceae | 2 | 12 | 5.74 | 丝盖伞属 Inocybe | 5 | 2.39 |
| 多孔菌科 Polyporaceae | 8 | 14 | 6.70 | 蜡蘑属 Laccaria | 5 | 2.39 |
| 红菇科 Russulaceae | 3 | 23 | 11.00 | 小皮伞属 Marasmius | 6 | 2.87 |
| 小菇属 Mycena | 11 | 5.26 | ||||
| 光柄菇属 Pluteus | 5 | 2.39 | ||||
| 红菇属 Russula | 17 | 8.13 | ||||
| 栓菌属 Trametes | 5 | 2.39 |