Plankton dynamics and geochemistry of Beaver Lake

Preliminary Metadata record for data expected from ASAC Project 2324
See the link below for public details on this project.

---- Public Summary from Project ----
Epishelf lakes are freshwater lakes situated adjacent to ice-shelves. Their basins continue beneath the ice-shelf, thereby providing hydraulic connection to the sea. Recent work (Laybourn-Parry et al., 2001) on Beaver Lake (Eastern Antarctica) has demonstrated that epishelf lakes are ecosystems on the edge of existence, and that their populations of largely microbial organisms live under permanent stress. It has been suggested that epishelf lakes are old and have acted as refugia for Antarctic organisms. Thus one might expect to find that a significant component of their biota has a circum-polar distribution. Our approach has two main aims, firstly to examine the biodiversity of the microbial plankton using molecular techniques, and secondly to produce models of carbon cycling in the water column for the summer, thereby elucidating the functional dynamics of the plankton community.

There are two files available for download from the URL given below. One is a text document detailing the methods used in the collection of these data, and the other is an excel spreadsheet of these data.

The fields in this dataset are:

Date
Depth
Ice Depth
Temperature
PAR
DOC
TOC
Ammonium
Nitrate
SRP
Chlorophyll
Bacteria
Viruses
HNAN
PNAN
Ciliate
Askenasia
Monodinium
scuticociliates
Strombidium
Mesodinium
Zooplankton
Boeckella
Primary Production
Bacterial Production