NORFANZ Biodiversity Survey Data 2003 - Biological Data

This record describes the biological survey data (species IDs and catch compositions) collected during the NORFANZ voyage on the Norfolk Ridge and Lord Howe Rise in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, in May-June 2003. Fourteen seamount and slope sites were sampled, 10 on the Norfolk Ridge and 4 on the Lord Howe Rise. A total of 168 operations were completed, including 144 trawl-sled-dredge shots, in depths ranging from less than 100 m to over 2000 m. Gear types included bottom trawls, midwater trawl, beam trawl, epibenthic sleds, and rock and pipe dredges. The dataset contains records of 1,622 macroinvertebrate species or provisional species units in 15 phyla, and 582 fish species in 122 families, and is expected to include a significant percentage of species new to science. Species identifications received from expert taxonomists received up to 2012 have been integrated into the catch data that are archived by the CSIRO Data Centre and available through the CSIRO Marine data trawler. Specimens are all lodged in Australian and New Zealand museum collections Accompanying these survey data are photographs and, in some cases, voucher specimens which are described in separate metadata records. To date at least 21 taxonomic revisions and species descriptions used material collected in this survey.