Australia’s Long-Term Plankton Observations: The Integrated Marine Observing System National Reference Station Network

Abstract

The Integrated Marine Observing System National Reference Station network provides unprecedented open access to species-level phytoplankton and zooplankton data for researchers, managers and policy makers interested in resource condition, and detecting and understanding the magnitude and time-scales of change in our marine environment. We describe how to access spatial and temporal plankton data collected from the seven reference stations located around the Australian coastline, and a summary of the associated physical and chemical parameters measured that help in the interpretation of plankton data. Details on the rationale for site locations, sampling methodologies and laboratory analysis protocols are provided to assist with use of the data, and design of complimentary investigations. Information on taxonomic entities reported in the plankton database, and changes in taxonomic nomenclature and other issues that may affect data interpretation, are included. Data from more than 1250 plankton samples are freely available via the Australian Ocean Data Network portal and we encourage uptake and use of this continental-scale dataset, giving summaries of data currently available and some practical applications. The full methods manual that includes sampling and analysis protocols for the Integrated Marine Observing System Biogeochemical Operations can be found on-line.

A Portable Cruising Speed Net: Expanding Global Collection of Sea Surface Plankton Data

“…The device was very effective in capturing subtle biogeographic changes in plankton species distribution along a 30 • latitudinal gradient in the Indian Ocean, confirming data collected in the historic voyage of the International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE) in the 1960s by Tranter (1977). The most remarkable result was the very strong and linear successional shift in community distribution from the highest latitude in the South (station 24) to the lowest latitude in the North (station 43) of the transect (Figure 6), consistent with previous studies in the region (Eriksen et al, 2019). Also supporting published observations was the predominance and differential distribution of copepods species across latitudinal zones (Tranter, 1977;Schnack-Schiel et al, 2010).…”

Global Warming Impacts Micro-Phytoplankton at a Long-Term Pacific Ocean Coastal Station

“…The STIs were calculated using Australia's Integrated Marine Observing Systems (IMOS) long-term plankton datasets from the National Reference Stations (∼750 samples) (Eriksen et al, 2019) and the Australian Continuous Plankton recorder survey (∼6000 samples) (Davies et al, 2016), The National Reference Station and Continuous Plankton Recorder surveys have analyzed phytoplankton in a consistent manner for 12 years and provide abundance data for phytoplankton across the full temperature range of Australian waters and beyond. The sea surface temperature for each sample over the past 12 years was sourced from the GHRSST L4 gridded product, which gives daily temperature over a 10 km resolution based on the time, latitude and longitude of the sample 2 .…”

“…The Port Hacking 100 m station (hereafter PH 100m ), one of the Pacific Ocean's longest time series stations, is 5 km from Sydney on the east coast of Australia (Figure 1). As part of the National Reference Station Network in Australia's Integrated Marine Observing System (Lynch et al, 2014;Eriksen et al, 2019), PH 100m is in a highly complex and energetic oceanographic region of the Tasman Sea. It is dominated by the East Australian Current (EAC), a western boundary current of the South Pacific sub-tropical gyre.…”

A database of zooplankton biomass in Australian marine waters

“…Comparisons of zooplankton biomass collected by different nets and samplers were summarised by Skjoldal 38 . Certainly the traditional standard 200 μm mesh net was used more in Australia in the past, but is now considered inappropriate for capturing the smaller zooplankton typical of oligotrophic tropical waters in much of the region 26,39 . In the analysis of the global COPEPOD dataset [40][41][42][43][44] , they found 333 μm mesh to be the most commonly used mesh size, so a factor was derived to convert all the other biomass records to 333 µm-equivalent values to enable comparison among datasets.…”