Zooplankton distribution and abundance during the BROKE-West survey

Samples were collected at trawl stations (approximately every second CTD station), as well as opportunistically when something interesting was spotted on the Echosounder. The samples were collected with an RMT-1 plankton net and preserved in Steedman's solution. Upon returning to Australia, the samples were passed onto Kerrie Swadling, who split them with a Folsom plankton splitter and counted between 400 and 1300 animals. Every organism was identified to the lowest possible taxon - in the case of copepods, usually to species and stage level. Other taxa are to species wherever possible. All the animals were counted and the results are expressed as abundance per 1000 cubic m. The data in the spreadsheet represent a species x site matrix. The excel spreadsheet entitled 'List of major samples and activities BROKE West.xls' is a summary of the sort of samples that were collected at each station, and the purpose for which they were collected. More detailed notes about the collection of the samples are presented in the Quality field. Further information about the Trawl stations can be found in the parent BROKE-West metadata record. This work was completed as part of ASAC projects 2655 and 2679 (ASAC_2655, ASAC_2679). The fields in these excel spreadsheets are: Station Number Species Date Latitude Longitude Trawl Type Formalin - whether the samples were fixed in formalin IGR - whether the instantaneous growth rate experiment was performed Genetics - preserved in ethanol, samples retained for genetic experiments Frozen - samples frozen at -85 degrees C for chemical analysis POP - samples analysed for Persistent Organic Pollutants Density Contrast - whether the density contrast of the krill were measured Isotopes - samples retained for isotope analysis Frozen DG - digestive gland samples were frozen Ethanol (Squid) - ethanol fixed squid were retained Frozen (Fish) - frozen fish samples were retained Formalin (Fish) - formalin fixed fish samples were retained Ethanol (Fish) - ethanol fixed fish samples were retained Demography - demographic parameters were collected Other - various purposes, occasionally noted in the comments field Comments The spreadsheet 'List of major samples and activities BROKE West.xls' is marked with solid black circles, or empty white circles - the empty white circles represent Euphausia crystallorophias samples. The solid black circles represent Euphausia superba in columns F-K, M and R. In the other columns they will either represent the animal as marked (eg squid), or may be a collection of anything.