Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry Data System

VERTIGO multi-ship
PI notes for Zooplankton data from MOCNESS tows

24 February 2009: Prepared for OCB data system by Steve Gegg, BCO DMO (WHOI)
from documentation contributed by Joe Cope.

Original data were contributed by Joe Cope as a single .csv file:
(BCO-DMO-VertigoZooplankton.csv)

Contact: Joe Cope (VIMS)
Zooplankton Ecology
Department of Biological Sciences
Virginia Institute of Marine Science
College of William & Mary
Chesapeake Bay Hall, Room s205
P.O. Box 1346
Rt. 1208 Greate Rd.
Gloucester Point, VA 23062-1346 USA
(804) 684-7357 Office
(804) 684-7839 Lab
joecope@vims.edu
http://www.vims.edu/bio/zooplankton/

Associated Publications:

(to be entered)

Sampling and Analytical Protocols

General Methodology

Zooplankton were collected with a 1 m2, 335 micron mesh MOCNESS (Multiple Opening/Closing Net and Environmental Sensing System) at ALOHA (KM0414) and IONESS (Intelligent Operative Net Sampling System) at K2.

The following discrete depth intervals were sampled on the upcast: 0-50, 50-100, 100-150, 150-200, 200-300, 300-400, 400-500, 500-750, and 750-1000 meters.

Paired tows during day (9:30-15:00 local time) and night (21:30-03:00) were performed. A total of 4 day-night pairs of tows were performed at each site (one day-night pair at the beginning and end of each of 2 sediment trap deployment periods per site). One day tow and one night tow from each sediment trap deployment were randomly selected for zooplankton identification.

Each sample was rinsed through a series of nested sieves of 0.35, 0.5, 1, 2, and 5 millimeter mesh. All animals collected on the 2 and 5 millimeter sieves were identified. Animals in the remaining fractions were subsampled with a Stempel pipette (5 - 15 milliliters) before identification. A minimum of 100 animals were identified from each of the smaller size fractions.

Zooplankton were identified to major taxa. Major taxa were Hydrozoa, Siphonophorae, Ctenophora, Heteropoda Thecosomata, Gymnosomata, Polychaeta, Chaetognatha, Calanoida, Cyclopoida, Harpacticoida, Poecilostomatoida, Halocyprididae, Mysida, Gammaridea, Hyperiidea, Euphausiacea, Decapoda, Doliolida, Salpida, and Appendicularia. The taxon category "Other" included bivalve larvae, isopods, larval fish, and small squids. Due to their delicate nature, Appendicularia data only included the 0-150 meter depth intervals.

If a major taxon was not found in a particular sample, an entry for that taxon was not included in the data (i.e., there are no zero (0) densities in the dataset).

Modifications to Original Data

Cruise_ID "K2" changed to "RR_K2" for consistency with other VERTIGO data sets
"date" column header changed to "date_begin"
"time" column header changed to "time_begin"