Table of Contents

• Coverage
• Dataset Description
  • Methods & Sampling
  • Data Processing Description
• Related Publications
• Parameters
• Instruments
• Deployments
• Project Information
• Funding

CTD casts at the Wilkinson Basin Time Series Station, Gulf of Maine from 2004 to 2018.

Related dataset:
WBTS Copepod abundance per m2: https://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/768306

These data were published in Runge et al. (2015) and Record et al. (2019).

Sampling at the Wilkinson Basin Time Series (WBTS) station followed as a guideline the protocols established by the Atlantic Zone Monitoring Program (AZMP) established by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (Mitchell et al. 2002).

Sampling and analytical procedures:

Environmental data. The R/V Gulf Challenger system comprised a Sea-Bird Electronics (SBE) 25Plus CTD, an SBE-55 Sampling Rosette with six four-liter Niskin bottles, a dedicated Hawboldt Industries SPR 1424/S Science winch, and a SBE-33 real-time monitoring and sampling deck unit. The system provided high-resolution vertical profiling of hydrographic properties (e.g. conductivity, salinity, temperature), physiochemical properties (e.g. Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR)), and surrogates for biological and geological processes (e.g. dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll-a fluorescence, and beam transmittance). The raw CTD data and bottle trips were acquired by SBE Seasave on a Windows 7 workstation and were processed from hex files to .cnv files. Post cruise data processing was completed on a Windows 7 machine running SEABIRD SBE DATA Processing version 7.22.5 At most stations, Niskin bottles were used to capture water samples at depths of 2, 10, 20 and 40 meters. To measure chlorophyll a concentration at discrete depths, duplicate, 100 mL or 500-550 mL subsamples were collected from Niskin bottles at the surface, 10, 20 and 40 meters. Water was filtered immediately on the vessel using glass fiber filters (GF/F) and polycarbonate membrane filters with pore sizes of 0.7 µm and 0.1µm. Chlorophyll-a concentrations were calculated were using equations in Strickland and Parsons (1972). Prior to 2014, IOP profilers calibrated annually were used to measure water column stimulated fluorescence. After 2014, the nominal chlorophyll-a readings from stimulated fluorescence measured with a Wetlabs Wetstar Chlorophyll Fluorometer S/N WSS-164 were corrected with chlorophyll concentrations measured from bottle samples.

Comments from originally submitted ctd cast files:

!comments=!PLEASE NOTE: Users of data will be required to provide proper credit and acknowledgment of the provider
!comments=!Users of data are encouraged to discuss relevant findings with the provider early in the research.
!comments=!The user is required to give all providers of the data being used a copy of any manuscript resulting
!comments=!from use of the data prior to the initial submission for publication, thus giving the data provider
!comments=!an opportunity to comment on the paper. The provider(s) shall have the right to be named as a co-author.
!comments=!Oxygen was not validated via winklers but sensor was sent back annually for calibration
!comments=!Discrete chlorophyll samples collected on most cruises to validate wetlabs chlorophyll sensor

BCO-DMO Data Manager Processing Notes:
* added a conventional header with dataset name, PI name, version date
* modified parameter names to conform with BCO-DMO naming conventions
* blank values in this dataset are displayed as "nd" for "no data." nd is the default missing data identifier in the BCO-DMO system.
* individual cast text files combined into one dataset with added columns cast_id,lat_start,lon_start,ISO_DateTime_start from values parsed in the header comments of each file.
* various missing data identifiers (e.g. -9999,-999,-9999.0000) replaced with default BCO-DMO identifier "nd" meaning "no data."

Description from NSF award abstract:
In the Gulf of Maine region, rapid warming of the ocean surface in recent years has raised concern in the research and resource management communities, fishing industry and the general public about effects on the coastal marine ecosystem. This interdisciplinary, collaborative project will improve understanding of the physical and biological processes controlling the abundance of a planktonic animal that is particularly important in the food web of the northeast coastal ocean. About the size of a grain of rice, the marine copepod Calanus finmarchicus is the primary prey for herring and other forage fish, as well as for the endangered northern right whale. This study will examine whether transport of C. finmarchicus into the Gulf of Maine from cold Canadian waters, in combination with growth and reproduction in the relatively cold Maine Coastal Current, is sufficient to supply the region with the numbers needed to attract and nourish the fish, seabirds and mammals that rely on its energy rich life stages, despite recent ocean warming. The research team will develop a computer model that links extensive understanding of the species' life history with ocean currents and temperature. Results from the model will be tested against field collections at two locations. This study will also contribute to the new Integrated Sentinel Monitoring Network, a joint effort planned by federal and state agencies with academic research participation to monitor future ecosystem change on the northeastern coastal shelf. It will train a graduate student and postdoctoral scientist in interdisciplinary research and also provide support for an early-career investigator.

The project will take a process modeling approach that takes into account regional and mesoscale interaction between life history and bathymetry and circulation to improve understanding of planktonic species distribution shifts. It will combine two decades of research on Calanus finmarchicus life history, including diapause, with a high resolution regional circulation model into an innovative application of a three dimensional, physical-biological model. The modeling approach represents an advancement of climate forecasts of species ranges by coupling a Lagrangian perspective with local processes to better resolve complex range boundaries. It will use Lagrangian parameters such as finite-scale or finite-time Lyapunov exponents, translating particle trajectories into scalar fields that represent the structure of the advective regime. The model will be informed by and tested with measurements of vital rates and demographic data collected on a research vessel at two time series stations. It will be used in backward-in-time and forward-in-time modes to test hypotheses about sources and destinations of C. finmarchicus in the Gulf of Maine, effects of match/mismatch in phenologies, and exploration effects of climate forced scenarios on advective pathways.