2016 SoE Marine Chapter - State and Trends - Water column, abyss (>700 m)

• Other Authors: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere (hasAssociationWith), Department of the Environment (DoE), Australian Government (resourceProvider), Emma Flukes (pointOfContact), Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), University of Tasmania (UTAS) (hasAssociationWith), Thompson, Peter (author)
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: Australian Ocean Data Network
• Subjects: oceans; water column; abyssal communities; zooplankton; expert assessment; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: https://researchdata.edu.au/2016-soe-marine-gt700-m/681162

Statement: QUALITY OF DATA USED IN THE ASSESSMENT Spatial and temporal coverage are excellent. Conversion of ocean colour to chlorophyll a introduces a source of potential error. Data could be extracted for each region to allow improved regional assessments of state and trend. Purpose To describe the state and trends in the quality of the water column community, abyssal depth (>700 m) for use in the Marine chapter of the 2016 State of the Environment report. The Marine chapter of the 2016 State of the Environment (SoE) report incorporates multiple expert templates developed from streams of marine data. This metadata record describes the Expert Assessment "The state and trends of habitats and communities - water column, abyss (>700 m)". The full Expert Assessment, including figures and tables (where provided), is attached to this record. Where available, the Data Stream(s) used to generate this Expert Assessment are accessible through the "On-line Resources" section of this record. --- DESCRIPTION OF HABITAT/COMMUNITY FOR EXPERT ASSESSMENT The water column is home to a diversity of communities. The relative biomass of the major communities is estimated to be 300:75:10:1 for phytoplankton, bacteria, zooplankton and higher predators in the southern ocean (Marchant 2002). For these dominant communities the major determinants of habitat quality is considered to be temperature (T), salinity (S), light, nutrients, dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, and food availability. SOE assessments for fish, EBPC listed species, marine mammals and benthic communities are found at elsewhere in this chapter. The phytoplankton community dominates the water column in terms of biomass and is the basis of all food for the other communities. Phytoplankton are all produced in the illuminated upper ~ 100m of the water column with light, phytoplankton biomass and food for other organisms generally declining exponentially with depth (Rex et al., 2006). At intermediate depths there is typically an oxygen and salinity minimum plus a nutrient ...