Voronina, N.M., K.N. Kosobokova, and E.A. Pakhomov. 1994. Composition and
     biomass of summer metazoan plankton in the 0-200 m layer of the Atlantic
     sector of the Antarctic. Polar Biol., 14: 91-95.

Spatial Coverage:  Atlantic sector of Antarctic Ocean

Temporal Coverage:  Feb. - April 1989

Language:  English

Abstract:  Composition of the metazoan plankton was studied during R.V.
     "Dmitry Mendeleev" cruise 43 (February to April, 1989) in the Atlantic
     sector of the Southern Ocean.  Samples were collected from ten stations
     at six locations.  Four of the locations were in open oceanic waters along
     the 15 degree W longitude.  Two others were in the Bransfield Strait and
     in inshore waters near Elephant Island.  At three locations at 15 degrees
     W sampling was conducted twice or thrice.  At all stations three different
     sampling gears were used to collect different size groups of zooplankton:
     series hauls were performed by 200 l water-bottle, mesoplankton net and
     macroplankton trawl for depths from 200 m to the surface.  The average
     biomass of zooplankton in open oceanic waters was 20.55 gm-2 wet weight. 
     Copepoda Calanoida dominate composing 54.8% of the total plankton,
     followed by Euphausiacea (19.8%), Ctenophora (9.7%) and Copepoda
     Cyclopoida (7.2%).  Biomass of any other taxonomic group was less than
     1 gm-2.  The relative biomass of Calanoida had a tendency to decrease
     southward along 15 degrees W from 86.1 to 68.1% in February and from 81.8
     to 23.6% in March-April.  The relative biomass of Euphausiacea increased
     in the same manner from 2.3 to 17.8% in February and from 3.7 to 41.6% in
     March-April.  The average biomass of calanoids from February to March-
     April decreased from 77.3 to 31.2% and that of euphausiids increased from
     6.2 to 33.8%.  The contribuiton of copepods and euphausiids to the
     production of the plantkon community in the Antarctic is discussed.