Metadata record for data from ASAC Project 1101 See the link below for public details on this project. ---- Public Summary from Project ---- Most of our knowledge of the Antarctic marine ecosystems comes from summer surveys. There are very few observations of this ecosystem in winter and there is a fundamental lack of knowledge of understanding of even basic questions such as 'what is there?' and 'what's it doing?'. The proposed visit to the sea ice zone in winter is a rare opportunity to conduct observations on phytoplankton, krill, birds, seals and whales, so that we can begin to understand the biological processes that go on in winter. Data for this project were intended to be collected on a 1998 winter voyage of the Aurora Australis, but a fire on board meant that the voyage had to return to port before work could be carried out. Data were then collected the following year during a 1999 winter voyage of the Aurora Australis (IDIOTS), which ran from July to September. Data attached to this metadata record, include zooplankton and CTD data collected from the Mertz Glacier region. The data have been compiled by Angela McGaffin, and can be found in the "processed" folder of the download file. Original datasets are also available in the "Original Datasets" folder.

This dataset is a document describing the Decapoda of the Southern Ocean. It lists all the known species and with illustrated diagrams provides a guide to their taxonomic identification. The document is available for download as a pdf from the provided URL.

This dataset is a document describing the Pelagic Tunicates of the Southern Ocean. It lists all the known Southern Ocean species and with illustrated diagrams provides a guide to their taxonomic identification. The document is available for download as a pdf from the provided URL.

This dataset provides a guide to the Euphausiacea of the Southern Ocean, in particular Euphausia superba Dana (Antarctic krill). It lists all the known species and with illustrated diagrams provides a guide to their taxonomic identification. The document is available for download as a pdf from the URL given below.

This data set includes abundance and distribution of sea ice and water column micro-invertebrates. Data was collected form 8 stations over the course of the SIPEX 2 voyage. The data for this project consists of 2 separate collection regimes: 1. Ice cores - a number of ice were taken at stations 1-6, using a 15cm corer, they were sectioned and dissolved in filtered seawater before being fixed in formalin. At Station 6 sufficient biomass was present in the bottom 10cm of some cores to allow microscopic separation of copepod species, which were then frozen for stable isotope analysis (SIA). 2. Lazer optical plankton counter (LOPC) was deployed at stations 2 to 7 either from ice holes (IH) or from the trawl Deck (TD) to depths of 60m or 100m. These deployments were made throughout the day where possible and were accompanied by a 100um plankton net . Each deployment consisted of 2 drops for both the LOPC and the net. Collected plankton were filtered onto 50um mesh and backwashed into vials before being fixed in 5% formalin. All LOPC files .bin will require LOPC program manufactured by ODIM Rolls Royce Nova Scotia. These files are read to format .dat which maybe opened as a .txt file

Krill Ecology - Technical Reports and Systems Guides A series of documents detailing work completed and methods used at the Krill Aquarium located at the Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report # Title and Author Technical Report 1. 26th January 1994. DAPI Epiflourescence Technique. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 2. 5th March 1995. Bag Culture - Cell Growth Count Protocol. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 3. 12th January 1996. Chemical 'Spiking' of Krill Aquarium Bio-filter T12. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 4. 24th June 1996. Cold Temperature Algal Bag Culture Methodology. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 5. 16th April 1997. Algal Bag Culture - Harvesting Method. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 6. 26th October 1999. Aquarium System Bulk Seawater Collection and Storage. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 7. 11th October 1999. Sodium Hypochlorite Treatment of Algal Bag Culture Filtration Unit. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 8. 18th October 1999. Feeding Krill - Algal Strains, Feeding Rate and Nutritional Values. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 9. 22nd November 1999. Krill Biology Section - Parental Algal Culture Maintenance. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 10. 10th April 2000. Krill Group Databases and Maintaining Daily Data Records. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 11. 11th May 2000. Making Up and Use of Iodine Solution as an Indicator of the Presence of Chlorine in Freshwater. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 12. 1st June 2000. Testing for Harmful Ammonia (NH3) in Aquarium Sea Water. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 13. 12th June 2000. Digitron Digilog 2088T Digital Temperature Logger/Gauge - Operating Instructions and Down-Loading Logged Data Guide. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 14. 27th June 2000. Krill Biology - Marine Science Support Shed Gear Storage. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 15. 15th October 2000. Making up of fe Growth Media Stock Solutions for Parental and Algal Bag Culture Production. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 16. 15th January 2001. Algal Bag Culture - Growth Rate Analysis. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 17. 19th July 2004. Protective Epoxy Coating of Onga Seawater Collection Fire Pump. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 18. 27th October 2004. New Krill Aquarium - Bulk Seawater Collection and Storage Logistics. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 19. 11th March 2005. New Krill Aquarium - Algal Bag Culture Filtration System. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 20. 6th April 2005. New Culture Cabinet Bag to Bag Inoculation Procedure. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 21. 17th June 2005. Agar Bacterial Plate Testing for Krill Algal Culture Stocks. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 22. 29th July 2004. New Algal Culture Cabinet - Bag Culture Setup Methodology. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 23. 24th May 2005. Protocol for Sterilization of Bag Culture Air Supply System. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 24. 30th May 2005. 200 litre tank Algal Batch Culture Setup. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 25. 22nd June 2005. Making Up and Shaping Plastic Bags for Algal Culture. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Techincal Report 26. 19th December 2005. New Krill Aquarium - Algal Strains, Feeding Rates and Nutritional Values. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division.

This dataset contains data files, processing templates and documentation relating to the BROKE-West multifrequency echosounder (acoustic) survey carried out from the RSV Aurora Australis in the austral summer of 2005/06 (ASAC project 2655). The primary aim of the acoustic survey was to describe the distribution and abundance of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) in CCAMLR Division 58.4.2. However, these data are also relevant for studies of other sound-scattering targets detected by the echosounder system, for example other pelagic taxa or the seafloor. The dataset is a collection of *.csv data files, *.ev processing files and *.pdf documentation files, organised into 4 categories: 1. Acoustic survey: data files relating to the transects undertaken for the acoustic survey 2. Acoustic data processing: metadata files, processing templates and documentation relating to the collection and processing of the acoustic data 3. Acoustic results: results arising from the processing of the raw data. The raw data are described in a separate metadata record - "AAD Hydroacoustics hard disks - data collected from Southern Ocean cruises..." 4. Ancillary data: additional non-acoustic data used during the processing of the acoustic data The file "data_fields.pdf" lists and describes the fields in each of the *.csv data files. The file "processing_methods.pdf" provides a synopsis of the methods by which the raw acoustic data were collected and processed. The BROKE-West survey was conducted on voyage 3 of the Aurora Australis during the 2005-3006 season. It was intended to be a comprehensive biological and oceanographic survey of the region between 30 degrees and 80 degrees east.

The dataset was developed during a cruise on the Umitaka-maru along the 110 E meridian from Fremantle to the ice edge. At five stations, zooplankton were collected and specimens selected for grazing experiments. They were added to 2L bottles, allowed to acclimate over 24 hours then placed in an onboard incubator and allowed to graze on natural phytoplankton assemblages. Water circulation around the incubator kept the temperature to that of seawater at the time of collection. Shade cloth was used to mimic the light conditions at each site. Where possible 4 replicates were run for each species and 4 control bottles were set up with the same phytoplankton assemblage but with no zooplankton added. Initial subsamples were taken and preserved in Lugol's solution. At the end of each experiment, further subsamples were taken and preserved in Lugol's solution. In the IMAS lab the phytoplankton samples were settled into smaller volumes and processed through a Coulter Counter to obtain the number of cells that had been removed by the plankton (initial conc - final conc). From those values, grazing rates of the species could be calculated for each site along the transect.

Data stored in a Dryad package (doi:10.5061/dryad.c75sj) associated with the publication: Genetic monitoring of open ocean biodiversity: an evaluation of DNA metabarcoding for processing continuous plankton recorder samples Authors: Bruce Deagle , Laurence Clarke , John Kitchener, Andrea Polanowski, Andrew Davidson. Molecular Ecology Resources. The Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) has been used to characterise zooplankton biodiversity along transects covering hundreds of thousands of kilometres in the Southern Ocean CPR survey. Plankton collected by the CPR is currently identified using is classical taxonomy (i.e. using a microscope and morphological features). We investigated the potential to use DNA metabarcoding (species identification from DNA mixtures using high-throughput DNA sequencing) as a tool for rapid collection of taxonomic data from CPR samples. In our study, zooplankton were collected on CPR silks along two transects between Tasmania and Macquarie Island. Plankton were identified using standard microscopic methods and by sequencing a mitochondrial COI marker. Data provided in the Dryad Data entry include the DNA sequences (Illumina MiSeq) recovered, the morphological identifications and the R-code used to analyse these data. The results from our study show that a DNA-based approach increased the number of metazoan species identified and provided high resolution taxonomy of groups problematic in conventional surveys (e.g. larval echinoderms and hydrozoans). Metabarcoding also generally produced more detections than microscopy, but this sensitivity may make cross-contamination during sampling a problem. In some samples, the prevalence of DNA from larger plankton (such as krill) masked the presence of smaller species. Overall, the genetic data represents a substantial shift in perspective, making direct integration into current long-term time-series challenging. We discuss a number of hurdles that exist for progressing this powerful DNA metabarcoding approach from the current snapshot studies to the requirements of a long-term monitoring program.

Zooplankton were collected during the winter-spring transition during two cruises of the Aurora Australis: SIPEX in 2007 and SIPEX II in 2012. To determine size and biomass, key species were measured. Measurements of Prosome, Urosome and Total length are provided. The zooplankton were taken from samples collected with umbrella nets, RMT1 net and sea ice cores. They were measured under a Leica M165C steromicroscope using an ocular micrometer. The ocular micrometer was calibrated against a stage micrometer (+/- 0.01 um).