Identity, composition and abundance of protists - data collected from the BROKE-West voyage of the Aurora Australis, 2006

The BROKE-West survey was conducted from 30 degrees E and 80 degrees E between January and March 2006. It consisted of 1 east-west transect at the northernmost limit of the survey between 60 degrees S and 62 degrees S between the 10 and 19 of January, followed by 11 meridional transects separated by 5 degrees of longitude and extending from approximately 62 degrees S to the Antarctic continental shelf between the 19 January and 3 March. This dataset details research undertaken to determine the identity, composition and abundance of protists in the survey area. Some explanations for terms used in the dataset are as follows: 1. Group is the taxonomic Phylum, Class and occasionally Order to which the taxa belongs. The abbreviations are: a. Diatom - Diatomophyceae/Bacillariophyceae. These are subdivided into the taxonomic Orders Centrales (centric) and Pennales (pennate) b. Chryso - Chrysophyceae c. Dino - Dinophyceae d. Eugleno - Euglenophyceae e. Hapto - Haptophyceae f. Prasino - Prasinophyceae g. Silico - Dictyochales (silicoflagellates) h. Choano - Craspedophyceae /Choanoflagellida i. Ciliate - Phylum Ciliophora j. Tintinnid - Phylum Ciliophora , Order Spirotrichea, Class Tintinnida k. Protozoa - refers to grouped rare taxa belonging to a number of Classes 2. Autotroph/Heterotroph refers to the trophic status of the taxa, indicating whether they are autotrophic (plant) or heterotrophic (animal). 3. CTD Station Number refers to the station at which samples were collected. Type indicates whether the samples were collected at the surface "surf" or at the point at which there was maximum chlorophyll fluorescence detected from the CTD flurometer trace "ChlMax". The data are all cell concentration numbers. For more information, see the other metadata records related to ASAC project 40 (ASAC_40), ASAC project 2655 (ASAC_2655) and ASAC project 2679 (ASAC_2679).