Zooplankton distribution and abundance during the BROKE-West survey

Samples were collected at trawl stations (approximately every second CTD station), as well as opportunistically when something interesting was spotted on the Echosounder. The samples were collected with an RMT-1 plankton net and preserved in Steedman's solution. Upon returning to Australia, the samples were passed onto Kerrie Swadling, who split them with a Folsom plankton splitter and counted between 400 and 1300 animals. Every organism was identified to the lowest possible taxon - in the case of copepods, usually to species and stage level. Other taxa are to species wherever possible. All the animals were counted and the results are expressed as abundance per 1000 cubic m. The data in the spreadsheet represent a species x site matrix.The excel spreadsheet entitled 'List of major samples and activities BROKE West.xls' is a summary of the sort of samples that were collected at each station, and the purpose for which they were collected.More detailed notes about the collection of the samples are presented in the Quality field.Further information about the Trawl stations can be found in the parent BROKE-West metadata record.This work was completed as part of ASAC projects 2655 and 2679 (ASAC_2655, ASAC_2679).The fields in these excel spreadsheets are:Station NumberSpeciesDateLatitudeLongitudeTrawl TypeFormalin - whether the samples were fixed in formalinIGR - whether the instantaneous growth rate experiment was performedGenetics - preserved in ethanol, samples retained for genetic experimentsFrozen - samples frozen at -85 degrees C for chemical analysisPOP - samples analysed for Persistent Organic PollutantsDensity Contrast - whether the density contrast of the krill were measuredIsotopes - samples retained for isotope analysisFrozen DG - digestive gland samples were frozenEthanol (Squid) - ethanol fixed squid were retainedFrozen (Fish) - frozen fish samples were retainedFormalin (Fish) - formalin fixed fish samples were retainedEthanol (Fish) - ethanol fixed fish samples were retainedDemography - demographic parameters were collectedOther - various purposes, occasionally noted in the comments fieldCommentsThe spreadsheet 'List of major samples and activities BROKE West.xls' is marked with solid black circles, or empty white circles - the empty white circles represent Euphausia crystallorophias samples. The solid black circles represent Euphausia superba in columns F-K, M and R. In the other columns they will either represent the animal as marked (eg squid), or may be a collection of anything.