Mesozooplankton play a critical role in marine ecosystems, yet the oceanographic and ecological forces structuring their communities are not well resolved. Trait-based approaches are used to simplify complex marine systems and describe the oceanographic drivers of mesozooplankton community distributions. Conventional sampling techniques, however, typically do not measure distributions at the spatial scale of fine-scale oceanographic transitions. Using a towed shadowgraph imaging system, we measured mesozooplankton abundances along the mid-shelf in the South Atlantic Bight (SAB) in August 2021. The zooplankton community was parsed into key traits, and stratification intensity was used to identify discrete oceanographic zones. trait diversity was lower in smoothly stratified waters due to dominance of low carbon content zooplankton or passive swimmers. Bottom water intrusions with high chlorophyll-a generate sharp stratification resulting in high zooplankton abundances with a diverse set of traits, which has implications for trophic transfer and carbon flux on the shelf.