8 Zooplankton Abundance Anomalies

Description: Abundance anomalies for 20 zooplankton taxa

Indicator family:

Contributor(s): Ryan Morse, Kevin Friedland, Harvey Walsh, Mike Jones

Affiliations: NEFSC

8.1 Introduction to Indicator

Zooplankton represent a critical trophic link from primary producers to fish in marine ecosystems.

8.2 Key Results and Visualizations

Abundance anomalies of small and large copepods have varied over time by EPU. Small bodied copepods and cnidarians show increasing trends in all EPUs. Large bodied copepods and euphausiids show no significant trend in any EPU.

8.2.1 MidAtlantic

8.2.2 NewEngland

8.3 Indicator statistics

Spatial scale: by EPU

Temporal scale: Annual

Synthesis Theme:

8.4 Implications

Check these. If they are correct, we could be seeing the less energy dense zooplankton becoming more abundant in each system.

8.5 Get the data

Point of contact:

ecodata name: ecodata::zoo_abundance_anom

Variable definitions

All are unitless anomalies from the 1977-2020 mean abundance for each taxon. Variables are taxa names: (to be described by contributors)

“Calfin”
“LgCopepods”
“SmCopepods”
“Cyclopoida”
“Diplostraca”
“Ostracoda”
“Cirripedia”
“Euphausiacea”

“Gammaridea”
“Hyperiidea”
“Mysidacea”
“Decapoda”
“Polychaeta”
“Echinodermata” “Mollusca”
“Pteropod”

“Chaetognatha”
“Cnidaria”
“Tunicate”
“Protozoa”

Indicator Category:

8.6 Public Availability

Source data are NOT publicly available.

8.7 Accessibility and Constraints

Request from Harvey Walsh,

tech-doc link https://noaa-edab.github.io/tech-doc/zoo_abundance_anom.html