The Australian Continuous Plankton Recorder (AusCPR) survey is a joint project between CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere (O&A) and the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) to measure plankton communities as a guide to the health of Australia's oceans. The zooplankton analysis is conducted differently to that described in Richardson et al 2006 as it is counted off the silk in a bogorov tray. This is accomplished by rinsing the silks in water and straining through a 10 micron mesh sieve. The collected plankton is transferred to a bogorov tray and counted under a dissecting scope. This is done to retain the phytoplankton. After counting the zooplankton and phytoplankton are stored with the silk segment in PGP preservative. AusCPR decided to analyse the zooplankton this way as it provides a more accurate analysis of the zooplankton present. It is easy to miss zooplankton when it is still on the silk and it is harder to identify. The aims of the AusCPR survey are to: * map plankton biodiversity and distribution * develop the first long-term plankton baseline for Australian waters * document plankton changes in response to climate change * provide indices for fisheries management * detect harmful algal blooms * validate satellite remote sensing * initialise and test ecosystem models. Servicing and maintenance of the CPRs and analysis of the samples for the AusCPR survey will be carried out by staff based at the O&A CSIRO laboratories in Queensland and Hobart and at the AAD in Hobart. The project was funded by the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) and falls with the Ships of Opportunity facility. Data storage and access is planned to be interoperable with other national and international programs through the IMOS Infrastructure. Results from the AusCPR survey are available through the AODN portal: https://portal.aodn.org.au. This data is freely available but please acknowledge all relevant parties, as detailed in acknowledgement section. Additional information for this dataset may be available via the original MarLIN metadata entry: https://marlin.csiro.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/c1344e70-480e-0993-e044-00144f7bc0f4. For information on using the data please refer to the Richardson et al. 2006. It is advised that anyone using the data should read this methodology or contact the project contact person. The data are made available in binned products for ease of use. As taxonomy changes over time and the ability of analysts improves with training more and more species are able to be identified over time. The products account for these changes and for real absences from the samples. A 0 abundance means that the species was looked for and not seen, -999 means that the species was not looked for in that sample. The products are therefore applicable for use time series analysis. There are 6 files to choose from: Raw file (includes all data, including sex and stage); Copepod species file (includes all copepod data where species have been identified); Non copepod species file (includes all non copepod data where species have been identified); Genus file (includes all data binned to genus level); Higher taxonomic group (includes all data binned to functional groups); Derived CPR Indices. The raw product contains the same information as the raw "flat table" form, but the absences have been added in and the taxonomic changes have been accounted for, for ease of use. Note: the binned and pivoted products described are currently only available by contacting imos-plankton@csiro.au. The latest raw data can be downloaded in "flat table" form (separate row for each taxon in each sample) on Step 3. All files are available in bio-volume instead of abundance on request.
This dataset has been superseded by the "IMOS - Zooplankton Abundance and Biomass Index (CPR)" collection that is available at https://catalogue-imos.aodn.org.au/geonetwork/srv/api/records/bf287dfe-9ce4-4969-9c59-51c39ea4d011 (this collection was removed from the AODN Portal in March 2022).
