| Summary: | Progress Code: completed Statement: All underway environmental data presented have been processed to remove spurious errors and the data are considered to be of good quality and high resolution. Underway data collected from the Aurora Australis are freely accessible through the Australian Antarctic Divisions Marine Science web site. Zooplankton data for the CPR samples represent raw counts of animals / ~ 5 nautical miles of sampling. The quality of these data are dependent on the processor and I have endeavoured to identify all specimens to the highest taxonomic level possible, including the life stage of crustacean taxa. Detailed species lists are provided, and the condensed data-set is available from the CPR program leader Dr Graham Hosie. This thesis was conducted under the auspices of the Southern Ocean Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) Survey. The research conducted had the dual aims of providing baseline data for this long-term monitoring program and providing the first detailed analysis of zooplankton communities and distribution patterns in the Southern Ocean south of Australia. Data were principally collected between October 2001 and March 2002, during five voyages. As a primary step I investigated the sampling characteristics of CPR, and assessed the utility of the CPR as a long-term monitoring apparatus in the Southern Ocean. Given the shallow sampling depth of the CPR (~10.5m), a major requirement of this calibration was quantification of the fine-scale vertical distributions zooplankton. This was done through direct comparison of CPR samples with depth integrated NORPAC net hauls. The CPR-NORPAC comparison identified the component of the zooplankton sampled by the CPR and provided a means for comparison between past and present data sets. As a final component of this calibration, it was demonstrated that the CPR was effective at identifying biogeographic boundaries. An essential requirement for the identification of long-term ecological change is baseline data on natural ecosystem variability, ...
|
|---|