# Presentation: 328745

## Task Order No. I-7“Historical Plankton Data Rescue”

- Todd O’Brien
- Marine Ecosystems Division
- NMFS-HQ

## Scientific Rationale

**Why are plankton data important?**
- In recent years, we have seen dramatic changes in the North Atlantic and North Pacific ecosystems, most visible in the bird and fish populations, but also in the plankton populations.
- Plankton are a direct link between primary producers and upper trophic levels.  They provide a unique tool to study the effects climate change on ecosystems, as they are a key source of food to fish but are not directly affected by fishing pressure.  Plankton production timing (*e.g., *the spring bloom) and distribution are dependent on temperature, and therefore impacted by climate variability.
- To better understand these recent dramatic observations, historical observations are needed.  Unfortunately, historical data are often in non-digital form, inaccessible, and sometimes forgotten in institutional archives and libraries.

## Review of FY 2006 Process

- 	The Task Leader
- identified candidate plankton data in the CDMP Web Search Store Retrieve Display (WSSRD) image database, searched institutional archives and libraries, and directly contacted investigators and institutions for candidate data;
- prepared keying instructions and sent data to the contractor.
- The Contractor
- prepared a keying template for the data, returned it to the Task Leader for approval, and key entered the data.
- The Task Leader
- quality reviewed the returned data, loaded them into the NMFS-COPEPOD database, and placed them online (_[www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov](http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/plankton)__[/plankton](http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/plankton)_) within 1-2 months of keying.

##  FY 2006 Project Accomplishments

**CDMP I-7 rescued the data content of over 7,256 plankton tows**
- collected during 125 cruises aboard 45 different research vessels;
- containing over 59,000 individual observations (measurements);
***                          ... ******and 2006 work will continue until February.***

**Notes:**
Dot color represents sampling density.  Light blue means >5 tows in that 1⁄4-degree grid (dark blue = 1-4 tows).  Antarctic data was therefore very dense (20 cruises of data)

## FY 2006 Project Accomplishments (2)

- COPEPOD database is released every 2 years as a NMFS TM, with an accompanying online, interactive atlas of plankton distribution and biomass concentration fields.
- All data from I-7 will be included in the upcoming “*COPEPOD-2007*”, while data from previous CDMP work is already featured in “***COPEPOD-2005****”*.

**Notes:**
The new South Atlantic data (in lower graph) was not CDMP.

##  FY 2007 Continuation Plans

- In addition to continuing the processing of existing WSSRD documents, high priority data sources from the northwest Atlantic, Pacific, Antarctic, Mediterranean, and South Atlantic Oceans have been identified.
- One high priority focus for ongoing FY07 work will be data from the ***Bureau of Commercial Fisheries***, a predecessor of NMFS.  In the Pacific Ocean, these new data would supplement the temporal and spatial coverage of data from the 50+ year CalCOFI time series as well as other tropical Pacific data.
**How much more needs to be done on this project (assuming support at FY06 levels)?**
- If the Task Leader stopped looking for new data today, the remaining 60+ WSSRD image documents, and the spin-off references in those documents, would take at least another year to complete.

## Slide 7