Phytoplankton samples collected from the SAZ SENSE voyage (V3 of the Aurora Australis), 2007

Brief description

A list of taxa and observations of phytoplankton collected from the SAZ Sense voyage of the Aurora Australis - voyage 3 of the 2006-2007 season.

These data are available via the biodiversity database. The collection contains 26 taxa and 562 observations.

More information about SAZ SENSE:
The overall objective is to characterise Southern Ocean marine ecosystems, their influence on carbon dioxide exchange with the atmosphere and the deep ocean, and their sensitivity to past and future global change including climate warming, ocean stratification, and ocean acidification from anthropogenic CO2 emissions. In particular we plan to take advantage of naturally-occurring, persistent, zonal variations in Southern Ocean primary production and biomass in the Australian Sector to investigate the effects of iron addition from natural sources, and CO2 addition from anthropogenic sources, on Southern Ocean plankton communities of differing initial structure and composition.

SAZ-SENSE is a study of the sensitivity of Sub-Antarctic Zone waters to global change. A 32-day oceanographic voyage onboard Australia's ice-breaker Aurora Australis was undertaken in mid-summer (Jan 17 - Feb. 20) 2007 to examine microbial ecosystem structure and biogeochemical processes in SAZ waters west and east of Tasmania, and also in the Polar Frontal Zone south of the SAZ.

The voyage brought together research teams from Australasia, Europe, and North America, and was led by the ACE CRC, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, and the Australian Antarctic Division.

The overall goal is to understand the controls on Sub-Antarctic Zone productivity and carbon cycling, and to assess their sensitivity to climate change. The strategy is to compare low productivity waters west of Tasmania (areas with little phytoplankton) with higher productivity waters to the east, with a focus on the role of iron as a limiting micro-nutrient. The study also seeks to examine the effect of rising CO2 levels on phytoplankton - both via regional intercomparisons and incubation experiments.