Abundances of copepod species in each net from MOCNESS tows in the Eastern Tropical North Pacific collected on four research cruises from 2007-2017 (NCEI Accession 0278013)

This dataset contains biological and survey - biological data collected on R/V Knorr, R/V Oceanus, R/V Seward Johnson, and R/V Sikuliaq during cruises KN195-02, OC1604B, SJ07, and SKQ201701S in the North Pacific Ocean from 2007-10-28 to 2017-02-08. These data include abundance, depth begin, and depth end. The instruments used to collect these data include MOCNESS1 and Microscope - Optical. These data were collected by Christopher Roman and Karen Wishner of University of Rhode Island and Brad Seibel of University of South Florida as part of the "Collaborative Research: A metabolic index to predict the consequences of climate change for midwater ecosystems (Metabolic Index)" and "Collaborative Research: Zooplankton in the Redoxcline of the Cariaco Basin: Impact on Biogeochemical Cycling (ETP)" projects and "Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCB)" program. The Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO) submitted these data to NCEI on 2021-07-28.

The following is the text of the dataset description provided by BCO-DMO:

Abundances of copepod species in each net from MOCNESS tows in the Eastern Tropical North Pacific

Dataset Description:
Acquisition Description:
Data are from vertically-stratified MOCNESS tows (8 or 9 nets per tow) through and within the Oxygen Minimum Zone (OMZ). Tows sampled various depth ranges between 1200 m to the surface and included paired day and night tows for many strata. Sampling intervals ranged from 100 or 200 m thick in standardized tows from 1000 m depth, and from 25, 50, or 150 m thick in fine-scale tows covering narrower depth intervals. Zooplankton collection occurred on the upcast portion of a tow. Several horizontally-sequenced tows were also done at specific mesopelagic depths within the OMZ. Large water volumes were filtered for most deeper and OMZ nets where abundances were low. MOCNESS sensors including a flowmeter provided environmental data. Tows were done over the course of a decade (2007 - 2017) during 4 cruises. See published papers below for details of tows and sampling schemes.

Net mesh size was 153 µm or 222 µm. Upon retrieval, samples or splits were stored in 4% sodium borate-buffered formaldehyde seawater. Sorting and identifications of whole samples or splits occurred later onshore by a trained technician using stereo- and compound microscopes. The copepod species shown in this dataset were selected to highlight different types of distributional responses to OMZ variability and are the basis for the Wishner et al. (2020) paper (Table S1 in that paper).