Standing stockThe highest variability in zooplankton standing stock values was associated with WL (Table 1). The highest TA and TB were recorded in the top 50-m layer, and the values usually decreased with depth (Table 2). Most of the zooplankton were concentrated above 50 m; this layer contained from 25 to 79% (mean 51%) of the total zooplankton abundance in the water column. The averaged vertical distribution of the water layer integrated biomass (mg DW m-2) indicated that a large portion of the zooplankton stock was concentrated in the upper 200 m (20.2–53.0% of the total biomass), but more than half of the total stock was present below 200 m (mean 59.4%, Fig 4) The total zooplankton biomass integrated over the entire sampled water column varied from 13.71 to26.00 g m-2.