IMOS National Reference Station (NRS) - Taxonomic Change Logs

This data set contains tables that document the changing taxonomic resolution of the NRS plankton analysis. Improvements are made in the resolution to which the analysts can routinely identify plankton species through training and QC events. There is a taxon change log table for both Phytoplankton and Zooplankton, both containing the same information. If a taxa is not present in the change log tables then the taxonomic resolution to which it is counted has not changed over the course of the project. If a taxa appears in the table then it has not been counted under that taxa over the course of the project. The dates will allow users to see when the taxonomic resolution was changed, what it changed from and what training led to the change. This information is particularly useful when looking at analysis such as times series or changes of distribution over time. Taxa can appear to have first been counted part way through the time series, when in reality they were being ascribed to a lower taxonomic resolution.