IMOS - AusCPR: Phytoplankton Colour Index for Australian Waters

A long-term plankton baseline for Australian waters, collected by the Australian Continuous Plankton Recorder (AusCPR) survey. The dataset is a joint project of CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research and the Australian Antarctic Division, funded by the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS). Results are available through the AODN portal, and the data is intended to map biodiversity and document changes in response to climate change.

Use Cases

• Mapping plankton biodiversity and distribution based on the Phytoplankton Colour Index (PCI).
• Documenting plankton changes in response to climate change based on the long-term baseline.
• Providing indices for fisheries management based on plankton community data.
• Detecting harmful algal blooms based on phytoplankton abundance indicators.
• Validating satellite remote sensing data based on in-situ plankton measurements.

Strengths

• Dataset is part of a long-term baseline for Australian waters, suggesting temporal depth.
• Data collection is a joint project by CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research and the Australian Antarctic Division, indicating institutional support.
• Analysis follows a published methodology (Richardson et al 2006), suggesting a standardized approach.

Limitations

• This dataset has been superseded by a newer collection as of March 2022.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network (AODN) portal, sourced from the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) Ships of Opportunity facility.

Collection Method

Data collected via Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) surveys, with samples analyzed at CMAR laboratories in Queensland and the AAD in Hobart.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-16 08:28:13.646789; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australian waters