IMOS Phytoplankton Abundance and Biovolume at Nine Australian Coastal Stations

Monthly (or three-monthly at some stations) phytoplankton samples collected from nine National Reference Stations around the Australian coastline. The dataset includes community composition, abundance (cells/l), and biovolume (um3/L) estimates analyzed by the plankton ecology lab. Data is made available via the Australian Ocean Data Network portal and is interoperable with other national and international programs.

Use Cases

• Analyze phytoplankton community composition changes over time based on monthly sampling.
• Study species abundance and biovolume trends at specific coastal stations.
• Conduct time series analysis using binned products designed for this purpose.
• Compare phytoplankton data across nine different Australian coastal locations.

Strengths

• Data covers nine stations regularly sampled around the Australian coastline.
• Includes explicit flags for data quality: 0 abundance means species was looked for and not seen, -999 means species was not looked for.
• Offers four binned products (Raw, Species, Genus, Higher taxonomic group) tailored for different analysis needs.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Taxonomic resolution has changed over time, requiring users to refer to change log tables.

Provenance

Source

Integrated Marine Observing Systems (IMOS) National Mooring Network - National Reference Station (NRS) field sampling.

Collection Method

Integrated water samples collected with niskin bottles at 10m depth intervals and preserved in lugols solution, analyzed by the plankton ecology lab.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-05 01:10:56.443514; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Nine stations around the Australian coastline.