Temperate coastal marine environments are typified by strong seasonality and highly productive annual spring phytoplankton blooms. However, in areas of strong tidal activity, coastal waters may remain in a state of low productivity year-round due to light limitation induced by deep mixing. Such high-nutrient low-chlorophyll (HNLC) environments can be found in British Columbia, Alaska, Argentina, and the United Kingdom. This study aimed to examine how zooplankton communities are shaped by tidally mixed environments through direct comparison of adjacent stratified and mixed regions on the British Columbia coast. Stations located in five distinct regions of coastal BC were sampled during the most productive months (April to July) over two years. The most seasonally stratified station was characterized by a higher biomass of large zooplankton species, including calanoid copepods and euphausiids. In contrast, the mixed regions had a higher abundance of small (<2 mm) zooplankton species and a prevalence of meroplankton taxa. Zooplankton communities in tidally mixed regions had indicator species that reflected source waters in an adjacent stratified area. However, despite different source waters, tidally mixed regions showed a convergence of community structure pointing to a common community modification process. It may be the result of a combination of advective processes, zooplankton vertical migration behavior, enhanced predation due to close contact with bathymetry and daytime transport to the surface, and a large contribution of meroplankton. In areas with strong tidal exchange, zooplankton communities were more similar than expected based on the physical and chemical characteristics of the water column alone. The mosaic of primary productivity regimes on the BC coast therefore translates into similar spatial scale variation in zooplankton communities, resulting in a spatially heterogenous prey field for zooplankton consumers.

温带的沿海海洋环境以强烈的季节性和每年春季浮游植物的高产为特征。但是，在潮汐活跃的地区，由于深层混合引起的光照限制，沿海水域全年可能仍处于低生产力状态。这种高营养低叶绿素（HNLC）环境可以在不列颠哥伦比亚省，阿拉斯加，阿根廷和英国找到。这项研究旨在通过直接比较不列颠哥伦比亚省海岸附近的分层和混合区域，研究潮汐混合环境对浮游动物群落的影响。在两年中生产力最高的月份（4月至7月），对位于卑诗省沿海五个不同地区的气象站进行了采样。季节性最分层的站点的特征是大型浮游动物物种的生物量较高，包括Calanoid pe足类和Euphausiids。相反，混合区域的浮游动物种类较少（<2 mm），且浮游动物类群盛行。潮汐混合区的浮游动物群落的指示物种反映了邻近分层地区的源水。然而，尽管水源水有所不同，潮汐混合区显示出群落结构的趋同，这表明共同的群落改造过程。这可能是由于对流过程，浮游动物的垂直迁移行为，与测深仪的紧密接触和白天向水面的运输导致的捕食增加以及浮游动物的大量贡献的综合结果。在潮汐交换强烈的地区，仅根据水柱的物理和化学特征，浮游动物群落比预期的相似。因此，在卑诗省沿海地区，初级生产力体制的镶嵌化转化为浮游动物群落的类似空间尺度变化，从而为浮游动物的消费者提供了一个空间异质的猎物场。