Eastern North Atlantic Ocean, Western Mediterranean, Arabian Sea/Persian Gulf, off Bermuda, Weddell Sea

Zooplankton and zoobenthos morphological parameters; Fish abundance in water bodies; Fish taxonomy-related abundance per unit area of the bed; Fish taxonomy-related counts; Plankton abundance per unit volume of the water column; Zooplankton taxonomy-related abundance per unit volume of the water column; Zooplankton non taxonomy-related abundance per unit volume of the water column; Zoobenthos taxonomy-related counts

Plankton nets; pelagic trawl nets; benthos samplers

The Biology Group at IOS Deacon Laboratory has been engaged in a series of comprehensive mid-water sampling programmes in the North Atlantic between the equator and 60° N and from offshore Europe and Africa mainly to 33° W for many years. Between 1969 and 1974 the sampler used was the opening/closing Rectangular Midwater Trawl (1+8), but in 1974 this was superseded by the multiple version (1+8m) Using both systems a macroplankton and a micronekton sample are collected simultaneously in an RMT1 and RMT8 net respectively, fished in tandem. At many stations a series of horizontal hauls were taken systematically in discrete depth strata 50-200m in thickness, so the whole water column was sampled. In the upper 900-1000m usually both day and night samples were collected; below these depths samples were taken irrespective of the light regime. A relational database is used for storage and retrieval of the biological data relating to the vertical and geographic distribution of open ocean species of macroplankton and micronekton. Data on the vertical distribution and maturity stages of the following taxonomic groups are included in the database: Decapoda, Ostracoda, Chaetognatha, Mysidacea, Fish, Siphonophora, Euphausiacea, amphipoda, cephalopoda, ctenophora, medusae, pteropoda, heteropoda. The total number of records entered into the database is 81523 and the number of specimens identified is over 4.5 million.

Hargreaves, P.M. (1990) North East Atlantic data held in the biological database of the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences Deacon Laboratory, U.K. Arquipelago., Life and Earth Sciences 8:55-61; Domanski, P. (1981) BIOS data base for marine biological data., Journal of Plankton Research 3(3):475-491

National Oceanography Centre (Southampton)
University of Southampton Waterfront Campus European Way
Southampton
Hampshire
SO14 3ZH
United Kingdom