IMOS - Zooplankton Abundance and Biomass Index (CPR)

Brief description

AusCPR: Zooplankton Abundance The Australian Continuous Plankton Recorder (AusCPR) survey is a joint project of CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere (O&A) and the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) to measure plankton communities as a guide to the health of Australia's oceans. The zooplankton analysis is conducted differently to that described in Richardson et al 2006 as it is counted off the silk in a Bogorov tray. This is accomplished by rinsing the silks in water and straining through a 10 micron mesh sieve. The collected plankton is transferred to a Bogorov tray and counted under a dissecting scope. This is done to retain the phytoplankton. After counting the zooplankton and phytoplankton are stored with the silk segment in PGP preservative. AusCPR decided to analyse the zooplankton this way as it provides a more accurate analysis of the zooplankton present. It is easy to miss zooplankton when it is still on the silk and it is harder to identify. The aims of the AusCPR survey are to: * map plankton biodiversity and distribution * develop the first long-term plankton baseline for Australian waters * document plankton changes in response to climate change * provide indices for fisheries management * detect harmful algal blooms * validate satellite remote sensing * initialise and test ecosystem models Servicing and maintenance of the CPRs and analysis of the samples for the AusCPR survey will be carried out by staff based at the CMAR laboratories in Queensland and at the AAD in Hobart. The project was funded by the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) and falls with the Ships of Opportunity facility. Data storage and access is planned to be interoperable with other national and international programs through the IMOS eMarine Information Infrastructure (eMII). Results from the AusCPR survey are available through the IMOS data portal: http://imos.aodn.org.au/webportal/ For information on using the data please refer to the Richardson et al. 2006. As the taxonomic resolution of the data has changed over time, due to continual training, it is important that users refer to the change log tables included in your data download. These will provide information on the validity of the taxa, from what date we have been identifying certain taxa etc. Classification fields may be blank depending on the level to which that taxa has been identified, i.e. if only identified to family, genus and species will be blank. This data is freely available but please acknowledge all relevant parties, as detailed in acknowledgement section:

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These data are from the Australian Continuous Plankton Recorder (AusCPR) survey part of the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) - IMOS is a national collaborative research infrastructure, supported by the Australian Government.

Please also acknowledge the relevant party that helped to collect the data. This information is contained in the download of the zooplankton abundance.

ANL - ANL Windarra container shipping
CSIRO - Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
MNF - Marine National Facility
Sealord Group Ltd.
SOCPR - Southern Ocean Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey
AIMS - Australian Institute of Marine Science
GA - Geoscience Australia
Swire Shipping
Malaspina Cruise - March 2011 aboard vessel Hesprides
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Additional information for this dataset may be available via the metadata link below:
https://catalogue-imos.aodn.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/bf287dfe-9ce4-4969-9c59-51c39ea4d011
Some of the records are from the CSIRO Marine National Facility and is used in any products, please acknowledge with the following: We acknowledge the use of the CSIRO Marine National Facility (https://ror.org/01mae9353) in undertaking this research.

Notes

Includes: point occurrence data