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Standard station CTD profiles measurements (down casts) with water sampling (up casts);
Calculations of the concentration (cells/Liter) of Alexandrium catenella, formerly A. fundyense, were completed using MS Excel. The spreadsheet used inputs of the original volume sieved at sea (usually 2 Liters), the volume re-suspended into formalin and then methanol (usually 14ml), and the volume of the plankton concentrate filtered for the molecular probe assay (usually 7ml, or less volume if during a significant bloom), and the number of labeled cells observed on that filter.
"Whole Cell" preserved samples. For the “Whole Cell” A. catenella water samples collected during the surveys, 2 Liters of seawater were drained from Niskin bottles into pre-rinsed bottles and sieved thru 20µm Nitex. The concentrated particulate material retained on the sieve was backwashed with filtered seawater (<15µm) into 15ml centrifuge tubes to a final volume of 14ml and preserved with formalin to a final concentration of 5%. After storage at 4oC for no longer than 36 hours, the tubes were centrifuged for 5 min (5000 x g), formalin was removed by aspiration leaving the pellet, replaced with 100% cold methanol, and stored at -20C for later analysis.
Enumeratio"n of the WC samples followed the methods developed by Anderson et al (2005a) using a species-specific oligonucleotide probe (NA-1) conjugated to a Cy3 fluorochrome and visualized with epi-fluorescence microscopy.
“Live" Count samples. To obtain quick estimates of Alexandrium sp. concentrations while at sea, 10 L of seawater from a surface 10L Niskin bottle was sieved and concentrated to 14ml. A 1ml aliquot of the concentrate was loaded into a Sedgewick- Rafter counting chamber and enumerated using standard light microscopy.
SeaBird 911+ Rosette 24-position, 10-liter bottle Rosette with dual T/C sensors At each station, CTD casts measured temperature, salinity and PAR. Water samples collected at depths of 300, 250, 200, 150, 120, 100, 80, 60, 40, 30, 20, 10 m, and the surface were filtered and preserved for nutrient analysis.
The Sea-Bird SBE 911 is a type of CTD instrument package. The SBE 911 includes the SBE 9 Underwater Unit and the SBE 11 Deck Unit (for real-time readout using conductive wire) for deployment from a vessel. The combination of the SBE 9 and SBE 11 is called a SBE 911. The SBE 9 uses Sea-Bird's standard modular temperature and conductivity sensors (SBE 3 and SBE 4). The SBE 9 CTD can be configured with auxiliary sensors to measure other parameters including dissolved oxygen, pH, turbidity, fluorescence, light (PAR), light transmission, etc.). More information from Sea-Bird Electronics.
A Niskin bottle (a next generation water sampler based on the Nansen bottle) is a cylindrical, non-metallic water collection device with stoppers at both ends. The bottles can be attached individually on a hydrowire or deployed in 12, 24, or 36 bottle Rosette systems mounted on a frame and combined with a CTD. Niskin bottles are used to collect discrete water samples for a range of measurements including pigments, nutrients, plankton, etc.
A pressure sensor is a device used to measure absolute, differential, or gauge pressures. It is used only when detailed instrument documentation is not available.
Sampling year
Vessel identifier: 1 - R/V Tioga, 2 - R/V Connecticut, 3 - R/V Gulf Challenger, 4 - R/V Warren Jr., 5 - R/V Scarlett Isabella
Cruise identifier
Station number
Nominal depth
live counts of cells concentration (live)
Alexandrium catenella cells concentration (WC)
Date of data collection in UTC, standard ISO format (yyyy-mm-dd)
Time of sample and data collection in UTC, standard ISO format (yyyy-mm-ddThh:mmZ)
latitude, south is negative
longitude, west is negative
Date and time of sample and data collection in UTC, standard ISO format (yyyy-mm-ddThh:mmZ)
Samples taken at ESP Stations, CTD stations or Underway
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