Mesozooplankton imaging analyses including size, abundance, biovolume, biomass estimates and identification for the Agulhas Bank EK188 cruise (SOLSTICE program).

This cruise was part of a large international project called Sustainable Oceans, Livelihoods and food Security Through Increased Capacity in Ecosystem research in the Western Indian Ocean (SOLSTICE-WIO). One of the SOLSTICE-WIO case studies was to investigate the oceanography on the eastern and central Agulhas Bank to better understand this ecosystem which sustains several commercial fisheries. The cruise occurred from 23-29 March 2019 on board the RV Ellen Khuzwayo. This dataset shows mesozooplankton samples collected using a vertical bongo net of 200 µm mesh size, towed in the first 200 m of the water column or to the bottom at shallow stations. The formaldehyde-preserved samples were analysed using a Hydroptic ZooScan and are presented here in terms of size, integrated abundance and biovolume as well as dry weight and carbon biomass estimates. The data are published in Noyon et al. (2021).