SeaFlow: Optical Properties of Single-Celled Phytoplankton with Physical Auxiliary Data

Two data files contain optical properties of single-celled phytoplankton and auxiliary physical measurements from oceanographic cruises. The biological data includes forward light scattering and red and orange fluorescence for Prochlorococcus, Synechococcus, and picoeukaryotes, sub-sampled to 10% of the original. François Ribalet of the University of Washington created this dataset, described in Ribalet et al. 2019.

Use Cases

• Modeling phytoplankton community composition based on optical scattering and fluorescence properties.
• Correlating phytoplankton distributions with sea surface temperature and salinity data.
• Studying the spatial patterns of Prochlorococcus, Synechococcus, and picoeukaryotes in surface waters.

Strengths

• Includes two linked data types: biological optical properties and physical auxiliary measurements.
• Data is sub-sampled to a defined 10% of the original, providing a manageable subset.
• Dataset is described in a peer-reviewed publication (Ribalet et al. 2019).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

University of Washington

Collection Method

Measured by SeaFlow instrument in surface waters (~5 m depth) during oceanographic cruises.

Geography

Ocean surface waters from unspecified cruises.