Zooplankton abundance in the Kerguelen Axis region

Zooplankton were collected with a Rectangular Midwater Trawl (RMT 8+1 net) from 37 sampling sites on and near the Southern Kerguelen Plateau. The contents of each net were preserved in 5% buffered formaldehyde. This dataset covers the counts of the contents of the RMT1 net. The contents were split in the laboratory using a Motoda Box and then identified and counted under a Leica M165C stereo-microscope. A flow meter attached to the mouth of the RMT 8 was used to record the volume of seawater passing through the net, and this volume was converted to water passing through the RMT 1 by applying the conversion factor of 2.027357. The organisms in the samples were identified to the lowest taxonomic level possible. For copepods and euphausiids this level was to species, and generally to sex and/or development stage. For other groups, the identifications were to high levels such as Family or Order.