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Macrozooplankton may play important roles in influencing nutrient exchange between salt marsh and nearby estuarine ecosystems through predator-prey interactions and their transport by tidal flows. In this study, macrozooplankton transport through year-round monthly sampling was investigated in a salt marsh creek of the Yangtze River estuary. Twenty-one orders of macrozooplankton were captured. Calanoida and Decapoda were dominant and numerically comprised 59.59% and 37.59% respectively of the total captured macrozooplankton throughout the year. Decapoda mainly occurred in April, May and June. In other months, the Calanoida contributed over 90% of the total individuals. The annual Ferrari index ( I ) for total individual number of macrozooplankton was 0.27, which generally supports the viewpoint that salt marshes are sources of zooplankton. The salt marsh was mainly a source for decapods and mysids, possibly because of larval release in their breeding seasons. The marsh was also a source for amphipods, probably because some benthic forms became transient planktonic forms during tidal water flushing. Copepods and fish larvae exhibited net import into the salt marsh, which may result from predation from salt marsh settlers or retention in the salt marsh. Monthly Ferrari index ( I ) estimations revealed that the role of the salt marsh as a sink or source of macrozooplankton was time-dependent, which is related to the life history of animals. This study showed that whether the salt marsh zooplankton act as energy importers or exporters is group/taxa-dependent and time-dependent.

Zooplankton are important grazers of primary production within intertidal marshes and are the optimal prey of higher trophic consumers; however, the patterns of their spatial distribution in marsh creeks are rarely reported. The zooplankton in the intertidal creeks with different salinities at Dongtan marshes of the Yangtze River Estuary was surveyed. The mean zooplankton densities in the intertidal creeks were 53,638 ind. m −3 in April and 132,916 ind. m −3 in July, respectively, which were as high as in the near-shore subtidal waters of the Yangtze River Estuary. This high abundance implied the important roles of zooplankton in the matter flux between marshes and near-shore waters through complex intertidal creek systems. Zooplankton total densities changed significantly from northern to southern creeks. ANOSIM and CCA analyses revealed that the zooplankton community structure were significantly different among the northern, eastern and southern creeks, and between two sampling seasons. Salinity accounted for most of the spatial variation of zooplankton community, whereas water temperature, chlorophyll a concentration, and pH were the main reasons of the temporal variation observed. Copepods were the most abundant zooplankton group. A total of 24 copepod species, belonging to 15 families and 20 genera, were recorded. Planktonic copepods preferred the northern and eastern creeks, with higher densities in July than in April, while benthic copepods predominated only in the northern creeks in April. Since the role of benthic and planktonic copepods may differ in transporting nutrients in the intertidal creeks, it is suggested that the variations in their distribution may influence the ecological functions of zooplankton in the estuarine matter fluxes both spatially and temporally.