Samples were split and photographed using the silhouette photographic method (Davis, 1985) and then the organisms were identified to taxonomic group and their length measured using Matlab based software described by Little & Copley (2003). Biomass for the taxa were calculated using formulae established by Wiebe et al (1975) and Wiebe (1988). Calanus biomass was calculated for each stage and net sample by multiplying the average length of the animals in the sample for that stage by the average wet weight for the same group. One Calanus' average wet wgt = 0.086*{avg. len}^2.809.
Small spheres tend to be copepod eggs, large spheres are usually fish eggs, and egg sacs are typically from the copepod Paraeuchaeta norvegica.
References:
Davis, C. S. and Wiebe, P. H. (1985) Macrozooplankton biomass in a warm-core Gulf Stream ring: time series changes in size structure, taxonomic composition, and vertical distribution. J. Geophys. Res., 90, 8871-8884.
Little, W. S. and Copley, N. J. (2003) WHOI Silhouette DIGITIZER version1.0 User's Guide. In: Woods Hole Oceanogr. Inst. WHOI-2003-05: 66 pp.
Wiebe, P. H., Boyd, S. and Cox, J. L. (1975) Relationship between zooplankton displacement volume, wet weight, dry weight and carbon. Fish. Bull., 73, 777-786.
Wiebe, P. H., Burt, K. H., Boyd, S. H., et al. (1976) A multiple opening/closing net and environmental sensing system for sampling zooplankton. Journal of Marine Research, 34, 313-326.
Wiebe, P. H. (1988) Functional regression equations for zooplankton displacement volume, wet weight, dry weight, and carbon: A correction. Fishery Bulletin, 86, 833-835.
BCO-DMO data manager processing notes:
* Version 2 (2021-05-18) replaces version 1 (2009-12-23). There was an unsupported character in the source file now fixed after the encoding conversion to utf-8.