Zooplankton dynamics in the Alaska Nearshore, Gulf of Alaska, AK NSF EPSCoR Fire and Ice, April - September, 2019-2021

The coastal margins component of the AK NSF EPSCoR Fire & Ice program has collected monthly zooplankton and oceanographic data throughout the summer production seasons (April-September) of 2019-2021. Zooplankton collection was performed at the beginning of each sampling month using a 0.25 m ring net (150 m mesh) equipped with a calibrated flowmeter (General Oceanics Environmental) to estimate the sampled volume throughout the study. Mesh size was selected to encompass a wide range of pelagic zooplankton species as well as individual life stages common to nearshore ecosystems. The net was fished vertically to a maximum depth of 50 meters, or 5 meters from the seafloor, with a consistent retrieval of approximately 1 m s-1. All samples were collected during daylight hours and immediately stored in 10% formalin-seawater solution until laboratory processing. Oceanographic dynamic variables were collected using a Sea-Bird 19 plus Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth (CTD) recorder (Sea-Bird Electronics Inc., Bellevue, WA, USA) either before or after each zooplankton sample. The CTD was equipped to measure temperature, salinity, fluorescence (2020-2021 only), and depth throughout the water column. All meta data were processed using Microsoft Access file formats with individual observation years recorded independently.