Global Plankton Taxa and Counts from Net and Trap Collections, 1928-1987

Plankton counts and taxonomic data were collected over a 59-year period from 1928 to 1987 using nets and traps on vessels worldwide. The Smithsonian Oceanographic Sorting Center compiled these records, which include gear specifications like net mouth diameter and mesh size. NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) holds the dataset, which was submitted for archival in 1994.

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term changes in plankton biodiversity based on taxonomic counts and collection dates.
• Studying the relationship between sampling gear specifications, like mesh size, and recorded plankton size classes.
• Modeling historical marine ecosystem states using spatially distributed plankton count data.
• Calibrating or validating contemporary plankton survey methods against historical collection techniques.

Strengths

• Covers a 59-year temporal range from 1928 to 1987.
• Includes global spatial coverage from numerous vessels worldwide.
• Contains metadata on collection methodology, such as gear type and net specifications.

Limitations

• Last updated 1987-08-18 00:00:00; freshness should be verified.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Smithsonian Oceanographic Sorting Center (SOSC), submitted to NODC/NOAA NCEI.

Collection Method

Collected using plankton nets and traps from various vessels.

Time Range

1928 to 1987

Freshness

1987-08 00:00:00

Geography

Worldwide