Sampling strategy: Samples from trawls or sledges are sieved on the trawl deck then sorted in the wet lab per taxonomic group. Sorting may vary from high taxonomic levels (order, family) to specific ones according to expertise on board. For some taxa, sampling includes: up to 10 voucher specimens with a unique batch number; photos; tissue samples in 80% ethanol for DNA analysis (Barcoding and Phylogeny); 30 samples minimum for population genetics (for abundant species); sampling for isotopic measures; fish chromosomes preparations; primary fish cell lines and cryopreservation of fish tissues for permanent cell lines The database was intended to contain information about stations, events, gear, all material collected and associated samples listed above. currently only contains information on material collected and samples. Data was recorded on log sheets then transcribed into an Oracle database called cabo. Tailor made user interace for entering data. No export functionality. SQL database dump has been provided but there was no-one on the voyage to elaborate on the structure, this was promised post voyage along with some simple data exports to match the log sheets, so we have access to the data without the unfriendly database.

The natural world is a mosaic of different habitats and biological communities; the tiles of this mosaic may be small but the patterns formed can be measured at many scales from metres to thousands of kilometres. Understanding these patterns is important to protecting biodiversity. We will identify major scales of variability in Antarctic coastal habitats, biological communities and processes that create them. We will also document scales of impacts caused by humans in Antarctica and potential impacts of future climate change driven by key processes (changes in sea-ice). This information will contribute to environmental management to protect Antarctic coastal ecosystems. This record is the parent record for all metadata records relating to ASAC project 2201. See the child metadata records for access to the data arising from this project. See the project link for a full listing of personnel involved in this project.

Infaunal marine invertebrates were collected from inside and outside of patches of white bacterial mats from several sites in the Windmill Islands, Antarctica, around Casey station during the 2006-07 summer. Samples were collected from McGrady Cove inner and outer, the tide gauge near the Casey wharf, Stevenson's Cove and Brown Bay inner. Sediment cores of 10cm depth and 5cm diameter were collected by divers using a PVC corer from inside (4 cores) and outside (4 cores) each bacterial patch. The size of each patch varied from site to site. Cores were sieved at 500 microns and the extracted fauna preserved in 4 percent neutral buffered formalin. All fauna were counted and identified to species where possible or assigned to morphospecies based on previous infaunal sampling around Casey. An excel spreadsheet is available for download at the URL given below. The spreadsheet does not represent the complete dataset, and is only the bacterial mat infauna data. Regarding the infauna dataset: - in - in the mat or patch of bacteria and out is in the "normal" sediment surrounding the patch without evidence of any bacterial mat presence. - Patch numbers were allocated to ensure there was no confusion between patches in the same area. - Fauna names are our identification codes for each species. Some we have confirmed identifications for, some not. Species names, where we have them and as we get them, are listed against these codes in the Casey marine soft-sediment fauna identification guide. This work was completed as part of ASAC 2201 (ASAC_2201).

Metadata record for data from ASAC Project 1229 See the link below for public details on this project. ---- Public Summary from Project ---- This project will develop a method to monitor human impacts in the shallow marine environment of Antarctica. Artificial substratum units, placed at polluted and unpolluted sites, will be recovered after a specific time interval and resident animal communities will be compared to identify the type and magnitude of impacts. Data are community abundance data from artificial substrate units comprised of three nylon mesh pot scourers. Taxa are identified to morphospecies. Substrates were deployed in nearshore waters of Casey Station. Standard deployment was 1 year at 14m depth. Four main sites were used - Brown Bay, Newcombe Bay, O'Brien Bay and Browning Peninsula. Brown Bay is a known contaminated site. Experiments were designed to investigate natural variation on spatial and temporal scales, habitat area and potential impacts of a contaminated site, Brown Bay.

Our aim was to compare water and sediment as sources of environmental DNA (eDNA) to better characterise Antarctic benthic communities and further develop practical approaches for DNA-based biodiversity assessment in remote environments. We used a cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) metabarcoding approach to characterise metazoan communities in 26 nearshore sites across 12 locations (including Ellis Fjord, Warriner Channel, Hawker Channel, Abatus Bay, Powell Point, Shirokaya Bay, and Weddell Arm) in the Vestfold Hills (East Antarctica) based on DNA extracted from either sediment cores or filtered seawater. We detected a total of 99 metazoan species from 12 phyla (including nematodes, cnidaria, echinoderms, chordates, arthropods, annelids, rotifers and molluscs) across 26 sites, with similar numbers of species detected in sediment and water eDNA samples. Please cite: Clarke LJ et al. (2021). Environmental DNA metabarcoding for monitoring metazoan biodiversity in Antarctic nearshore ecosystems. PeerJ, DOI: 10.7717/peerj.12458 This work was completed as part of the Davis Aerodrome Project (DAP).

Metadata record for data from ASAC Project 2792 See the link below for public details on this project. Australia's Census of Antarctic Marine Life project. This project is a part of the international "Census of Antarctic Marine Life" (CAML) which is to be conducted during the International Polar Year. It is a collaborative contribution by Australia and France to understand the biodiversity of the oceans surrounding Antarctica, with particular emphasis on the fishes of the eastern part of the Australian Antarctic Territory. The biodiversity data, when added to that obtained by all other nations participating in the CAML, will serve as a robust reference for future examinations of the health of the Southern Ocean, and assist in the conservation and management of the region. 2007/2008 Season A. Plankton 1. The impact of climate change on the plankton. The pelagic ecosystem in the Southern Ocean has taken the brunt of human impact in the region and there is evidence that it is already responding to the effects of global climate change. Plankton is particularly sensitive to climate change and change in their biodiversity is expected to have serious ramifications through the rest of the ecosystem including the survival of higher predators. Some species are adapted to cold waters of Antarctic where some are supposedly cosmopolitan. Which will survive global warming? For how long will there be an Antarctic marine ecosystem? 2. Consequences of environmental change driven by past and current exploitation of living resources in the region, e.g. current scale fish and krill fisheries, fishery by-catch species, recovery of whales and seals. 3. "Ecosystem services" - The role of Southern Ocean plankton as source of human food (krill fishery or other) carbon draw down/mediation, bio-climate feedback though dimethyl sulphide production, bioproducts, sensitive indicators of ocean health, and foundation of the Antarctic marine ecosystem - no plankton, no ecosystem. B. Fish 1. What is the composition of the epipelagic, mesopelagic and benthic ichthyofaunas between the Antarctic Divergence and the coast at Dumont d'Urville? 2. How does the physical and biological structure of the water column, conditions of ice-cover and bottom topography influence the composition and distribution of these ichthyofaunas? 3. What changes in the community structure of the benthic ichthyofauna as a result from the passage of large icebergs? C. Benthos 1. What are the ecological and historical factors affecting benthic diversity? 2. How will benthic communities respond to change? We do not know how sensitive the Antarctic benthic communities are to global climate change, or to localised environmental change as seen in the Antarctic peninsula area, or to the impacts of increased trawling. We have no benchmark to compare the effects of change, although the effects of iceberg scouring and rate of recovery/re-colonisation will serve as a useful analogy for trawling perturbation. 3. What are the links between Antarctic and other faunas? This includes benthic-pelagic coupling, the benthos as a foraging zone for higher predators, and through the Antarctic Circumpolar Current - connections with other southern continents. Field sampling for this project was undertaken in the 2007/08 season, commencing in December and finishing in February 2008. Consequently, sample processing has only been underway for one or two months for plankton and pelagic fish samples. The demersal fish and benthic samples have only recently arrived at the National Natural History Museum (MNHN) in Paris ready for distribution to taxonomists and analysts. However, key CEAMARC collaborators who attended the recent post-field season CEAMARC workshop, Calvi April 2008, agreed that the use of three vessels for the field programme, instead of one ship as originally proposed, more than met expectations should sufficiently address all the objectives. Specifically, we have collected a substantial number of samples with sufficient sampling intensity and resolution to set the required benchmark of biodiversity in the survey for the pelagic, mesobathypelagic and benthic environments. This biodiversity benchmark will allow us to: - Compare changes in biodiversity with future CAML surveys and also with past surveys - Define legacy sites in the survey area for future CAML surveys and interim annual or biennial monitoring programmes to continuing the effects of climate change - Which species are most likely to be affected by climate change and those most likely to survive - Contribute to models looking at long term changes in species composition, ecosystem structure and function, survivorship of key species, effects of global warming, ocean acidification, and impacts on ecosystem service - Studies of the impact of trawling and iceberg scouring on the benthic and demersal communities - Compare pelagic, demersal and benthic communities in the survey area with those in the other CAML survey areas around Antarctica Sufficient samples of plankton, fish and benthos were also collected for genetic and molecular analyses to improve our taxonomic knowledge and address the CAML objective on understanding species radiation. Taken from the 2008-2009 Progress Report: Public summary of the season progress: This project is a part of the international "Census of Antarctic Marine Life" (CAML) conducted during International Polar Year. It is a collaborative contribution by Australia, France, Japan and Belgium to understand the biodiversity of Antarctic waters, with particular emphasis on plankton, fish and benthos of eastern Antarctica. In 2007/08, three ships surveyed this area with a range of traditional and modern sampling gear. The biodiversity data from this survey will be added to other CAML projects to serve as a robust reference for future examinations of the health of the Southern Ocean, and assist in its conservation and management.

The biodiversity database is planned to be a reference on Antarctic and subantarctic flora and fauna collated by the Regional Sensitivity to Climate Change (RiSCC) group and developed by the Australian Antarctic Data Centre. Searches are available in the following areas: Taxonomy Protection and convention measures (protected species) Observations Scientific Bibliographies

A survey of macrobenthic assemblages in soft-sediments was done at Casey Station, East Antarctica. Samples were taken by divers using hand-held corers (core size - 10 cm diameter by 10 cm deep). This was the final component of a large nested sampling survey extending over a three year periods with samples taken in three summers and one winter period. The aims were: 1) To examine spatial variation at several scales in these assemblages; 2) To determine if there were differences between potentially impacted areas and control areas; 3) To determine the level of replication, taxonomic resolution and data transformation that are appropriate to studies of human impacts in Antarctic soft-sediment assemblages. Cores were collected by divers in a hierarchical, spatially nested design incorporating 4 scales: Locations (1000s of metres apart), Sites (100s of metres), Plots (10s of metres) and among replicates within plots (~1 metre). This data set consists of 48 core samples from three locations, O'Brien Bay, Sparkes Bay and Wilkes. Samples are sorted mainly to species. Links to ASAC 1100. The fields in this dataset are: Location Site/Rep Species

A survey of macrobenthic assemblages in soft-sediments was done at Casey Station, East Antarctica. Samples were taken along four transects in Brown Bay, along a pollution gradient that has its source at an abandoned waste tip on the shore of Brown Bay. The transects were up to 300 M long and there were 9 sampling stations on each transect except for transect four which had only 4 sampling stations. Sampling stations were at the following distances from the shoreline and tip site: 10 m, 20 m, 30 m, 40 m, 50 m, 100 m, 150 m, 200 m, and 300 m. Two cores of the soft-sediment assemblages were taken at each sampling station and two cores for analysis of heavy metals and hydrocarbons. Samples were taken by divers using hand-held corers (fauna core size - 10 cm diameter by 10 cm deep; sediment analysis cores - 5 cm diam. by 10 cm deep). The aims were: 1) to determine the nature and extent of the contamination gradient in front of the tip site and; 2) to determine if there was a corresponding response in the soft-sediment assemblages along the contamination gradient. A total of 62 samples of soft-sediment assemblages and 62 samples for heavy metal and hydrocarbon analysis were taken. Sediment grain size was also examined at each sampling point. The benthic diatom communities were also analysed in each sample. Links to ASAC 1100. The fields in this dataset are: Distance Position Site and replicate Species

The recruitment of epifauna (sessile and mobile) on hard-substratum was examined in a field experiment using tiles. A total of 160 tiles were deployed at five locations, with 32 tiles at each location, arranged in a spatially nested design. There were three potentially impacted locations locations (two in Brown Bay and one in Shannon Bay) and two control locations (in O'Brien Bay). This metadata record describes data from the first sampling time only. Eight tiles were collected from each location 15 months after the initial deployment. The experiment was setup so that recruitment of sessile epifauna to both the upper and lower sides of the tiles could be examined. The mobile epifauna on the tiles were also collected and are described in a separate metadata record. Heavy recruitment was observed on the underside of the tile and only light recruitment was observed on the upper surface. Also links to ASAC 1100.