An Alternative Framework to Assess Marine Ecosystem Functioning in Shelf Seas (AlterEco) post-recovery Seaglider Lab-on-a-chip (LoC) phosphate data between August and September 2018 in the North Sea.

As part of the Alternative Framework to Assess Marine Ecosystem Functioning in Shelf Seas (AlterECO) project (NERC grant reference NE/P013902/1), Seagliders and Slocums were deployed in a physically dynamic region of the North Sea, known to undergo seasonal oxygen depletion, between November 2017 and April 2019. The post-recovery Seaglider Lab-on-a-chip (LoC) phosphate data was from one of the Seaglider deployments (SG550). The LoC analyser was designed and fabricated at the National Oceanography Centre and use the classic molybdenum blue spectrophotometric assay to measure in-situ phosphate concentration (Grand et al. 2017, Clinton-Bailey et al. 2017). The LoC analysers were integrated in the Seaglider following the procedure outlined by Vincent et al. 2017. The analysers were tested and calibrated by Antony Birchill and Alex Beaton. Integration into Seaglider vehicles was carried out by Antony Birchill, Michael Smart and John Walk. Post recovery data processing was conducted by Antony Birchill. During the 3 year programme and by developing and implementing a novel monitoring framework, AlterEco aims to deliver an improved spatio-temporal understanding of shelf sea function and provide measurements of critical indicators of marine ecosystem health over seasonal timescales.