Fig. S1. Sampling stations in the East China Sea. Zooplankton samples were collected
in the East China Sea from 2006 to 2009, by using a 330-µm mesh ORI net (Ocean
Research Institute plankton net) with a mouth of 160-cm diameter. Fish larvae
samples were collected using the same ORI net. The net was hauled obliquely from
10 m above the sea floor to the surface at a speed of 0.3 m s-1. When the water depth
was greater than 200 m, the nets were hauled from 200 m to the surface. Zooplankton
and larval fish samples were fixed with 10% buffered formalin. All samples were
brought back to the lab for further processing. Water temperature was measured by
the CTD (SBE9/11 plus, Seabird Inc., USA). Nutrient and chlorophyll a samples were
collected with Teflon coated Go-Flo bottles (20L, General Oceanics Inc., USA)
mounted on a rosette sampler spanning 6 to 10 depths for the water column and stored
under liquid nitrogen until analysis. Analytic methods for the determination of
nutrients (nitrate, phosphate, and silicate) and chlorophyll a followed the previously
published papers (Gong et al. 2000, Gong et al. 2011). Note however, not every
station was sampled for each cruise, due to constraints of weather conditions (Table
S1).
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Fig. S2. Schematic indicating that either increasing the proportion of small body size
zooplankters (community b) or large body size zooplankters (community c) can
increase the size diversity compared with community a. The size diversity of
community b is equal to that of community c and higher than that of community a.
Here, we use arbitrary Guassian distribution to illustrate the concept; however, the
conclusion remains hold for any distribution.
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Fig.S3. Correlation between zooplankton taxa diversity with water temperature (A)
and latitude (B) for the six cruises (2006 - 2009) in the East China Sea. The eqn.
represents the linear regression model for all cruises pooled (2006 - 2009). The result
remains qualitatively the same when cruises are considered as random effects in the
GLMM (Table S5). The Shannon diversity exhibited a positive correlation with water
temperature and increased from high to low latitudes.
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Fig. S4. Comparisons of Shannon diversity estimated from the ZooScan data versus
the diversity estimated from the order-level zooplankton community data (A) and
from the species-level copepod community data (B). Both zooplankton samples are
from the June 2006 cruise.
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Fig. S5. Schematic indicating that size diversity is independent of zooplankton
biomass. The total biomass of three hypothetical datasets decreased from left to the
right, but they have identical size diversity. Here, we use arbitrary zooplankton size
distribution to illustrate the concept; however, the conclusion remains hold for any
distribution.
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Fig. S6. Schematic indicating that size diversity is independent of zooplankton mean
body size. The mean body size of the hypothetical zooplankton community increased
from left (dotted black line) to the right (solid red line), but they have identical size
diversity with the method of calculating size diversity in this manuscript. Here, we
use arbitrary Guassian distribution to illustrate the concept; however, the conclusion
remains hold for any distribution.
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Fig. S7. Scatter plot illustrating a positive relationship between log10 transformed
zooplankton biomass and geometric mean of zooplankton body size.
Page 7 of 8
Supporting References
Gong, G. C., K. K. Liu, K. P. Chiang, T. M. Hsiung, J. Chang, C. C. Chen, C. C.
Hung, W. C. Chou, C. C. Chung, H. Y. Chen, F. K. Shiah, A. Y. Tsai, C. H. Hsieh,
J. C. Shiao, C. M. Tseng, S. C. Hsu, H. J. Lee, M. A. Lee, I. I. Lin, and F. J. Tsai.
2011. Yangtze River floods enhance coastal ocean phytoplankton biomass and
potential fish production. Geophysical Research Letters 38:L13603.
Gong, G. C., F. K. Shiah, K. K. Liu, Y. H. Wen, and M. H. Liang. 2000. Spatial and
temporal variation of chlorophyll a, primary productivity and chemical
hydrography in the southern East China Sea. Continental shelf Research
20:411-436.
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