Table of Contents

• Dataset Description
  • Methods & Sampling
  • Data Processing Description
• Data Files
• Parameters
• Instruments
• Deployments
• Project Information
• Program Information
• Funding

Copepods were identified, staged, and enumerated several JGOFS and GLOBEC cruises in the Arabian Sea between 1994 and 1995.

Relevant References: 

Drapun, I. and S.L. Smith. 2011. Halocyprid Ostracods of the Arabian Sea Region. Sultan Qaboos University Academic Publication Board, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, 223pp.

Lane, P.V.Z. and S.L. Smith. 1997. United States Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (U.S. JGOFS) Technical Report: Zooplankton biomass in the upper water column of the Arabian Sea in 1994 and 1995. RSMAS Technical Report 97007, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami Press, Miami, FL, 23pp.

Lane, P.V.Z., S.L. Smith, J. Zaragoza, I. Prusova and M. Roman. 1998. United States Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (U.S. JGOFS) Technical Report: Copepod taxonomy, abundance and biomass in the upper 300 meters of t he Arabian Sea during the Southwest Monsoon (August/September) of 1995. RSMAS Technical Report 98007, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami Press, Miami, FL, 409pp.

Lane, P.V.Z., S.L. Smith, J. Zaragoza and I. Prusova. 1999. United States Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (U.S. JGOFS) Technical Report: Copepod taxonomy, abundance and biomass in the upper 300 meters of the Arabian Sea during the Northeast Monsoon (December) of 1995. RSMAS Technical Report 99004, Rosenstiel School of Marin eand Atmospheric Science, University of Miami Press, Miami, FL, 306pp.

Prusova, I., S.L. Smith, and E. Popova. 2011. Calanoid Copepods of the Arabian Sea Region. Sultan Qaboos University Academic Publication Board, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, 240pp.

Roman, M., S. Smith, K. Wishner, X. Zhang and M. Gowing. 2000. Mesozooplankton production and grazing in the Arabian Sea. Deep-Sea Research II, 47, 1423-1450.

Smith, S.L., L.A. Codispoti, J.M. Morrison and R.T. Barber. 1998. The 1994-1996 Arabian Sea Expedition: an integrated, interdisciplinary investigation of the response of the northwestern Indian Ocean to monsoonal forcing. Deep-Sea Research II, 45, 1905-1916.

Smith, S.L., M. Roman, I Prusova, K. Wishner, M. Gowing, L.A. Codispoti, R. Barber, J. Marra and C. Flagg. 1998. Seasonal response of zooplankton to monsoonal reversals in the Arabian Sea. Deep-Sea Research, 45 (10-11), 2369-2403. doi:10.1016/S0967-0645(98)00075-7

Wiebe, P.H., K.H. Burt, S.H. Boyd and A.W. Morton. 1976. A multiple opening-closing net and envirometal sensing system for sampling zooplankton. Journal of Marine Research, 34, 312-326.

Wiebe, P.H., A.W. Morton, A.M. Bradley, J.E. Craddock, T.J. Cowles, V.A. Barber, R.H. Backus and G.R. Flierl. 1985. New developments in the MOCNESS, an apparatus for sampling zooplankton and micronekton. Marine Biology, 87, 313-323.

Please see the linked pdf's for information on the type of MOCNESS system used to sample and details on the collection and processing:

TN039
TN043
TN045
TN050
TN054
MB95-03
MB95-06

Data Processing:  

Any species with a number per cubic meter abundance less than 0.05 were marked with a 'p'  in the abundance column to indicate its presence in the sample. Counts were first adjusted from subsample numbers to total numbers for the entire sample; total numbers were then divided by total volume filtered in cubic meters to arrive at numbers per cubic meter for each species or taxon.

BCO-DMO Processing:

- added top level header to serve data from all cruises as one dataset
- renamed column names (parameter names) to BCO-DMO standard
- replaced spaces in species names with underscores

version 2014-04-15 included data from TT050 and TT054
version 2014-05-27 added data from TT039
version 2014-12-31 added data from MN95-03 and MN95-06
version 2015-01-05 added TT043 and TT045
version 2016-05-04 corrected event and date for MB95-03/MB95-03_MOC1-33

The U.S. Arabian Sea Expedition which began in September 1994 and ended in January 1996, had three major components: a U.S. JGOFS Process Study, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF); Forced Upper Ocean Dynamics, an Office of Naval Research (ONR) initiative; and shipboard and aircraft measurements supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Expedition consisted of 17 cruises aboard the R/V Thomas Thompson, year-long moored deployments of five instrumented surface buoys and five sediment-trap arrays, aircraft overflights and satellite observations. Of the seventeen ship cruises, six were allocated to repeat process survey cruises, four to SeaSoar mapping cruises, six to mooring and benthic work, and a single calibration cruise which was essentially conducted in transit to the Arabian Sea.

The infusion or transport of large-bodied copepods, whose life cycle includes diapauses (hibernation) at subsurface depths, into the upwelling area off Oman is fundamental to the success of the pelagic ecosystem in the region. Changes in the SW Monsoon wind pattern or strength can alter timing and intensity of upwelling and mixing, presenting the possibility that primary productivity during upwelling (dominated by diatoms) and the large-bodied, diapausing copepods that ingest phytoplankton, may become de-coupled. When decoupling has happened in other ecosystems, populations crash forcing a food web reorganization, often with outcomes that are undesirable. In the case of Oman, the abundant myctophid fish, a key link to upper trophic level fish of commercial importance, may be at risk for a significant population decline because of changes in the timing of primary production.

Now that climate change may be altering the monsoon cycle of wind forcing in the Arabian Sea, there exists the possibility that the life cycle of diapausing C. carinatus may become mismatched with the appearance of their food supply occurring during the upwelling season. While ontogenetic migration is generally associated with high latitude environments, where the spring bloom of phytoplankton driven by the annual cycle of sunlight provides a spatially and temporally reliable food supply, there are no other copepods inhabiting the tropics and subtropics that have diapause at depth in their life cycle (except perhaps Subeucalanus crassus in the Arabian Sea). Understanding the cues that trigger downward migration of C. carinatus at the end of the upwelling season, and investigating whether S. crassus has a phenology similar to C. carinatus, are the goals of this project. An international archive of samples from the Arabian Sea extending back to 1992, as well as new samples, will be used in this study.

Affiliated programs: The Netherlands Indian Ocean Programme, NIOP; US-GLOBEC

The United States Joint Global Ocean Flux Study was a national component of international JGOFS and an integral part of global climate change research.

The U.S. launched the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) in the late 1980s to study the ocean carbon cycle. An ambitious goal was set to understand the controls on the concentrations and fluxes of carbon and associated nutrients in the ocean. A new field of ocean biogeochemistry emerged with an emphasis on quality measurements of carbon system parameters and interdisciplinary field studies of the biological, chemical and physical process which control the ocean carbon cycle. As we studied ocean biogeochemistry, we learned that our simple views of carbon uptake and transport were severely limited, and a new "wave" of ocean science was born. U.S. JGOFS has been supported primarily by the U.S. National Science Foundation in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Energy and the Office of Naval Research. U.S. JGOFS, ended in 2005 with the conclusion of the Synthesis and Modeling Project (SMP).

The United States Joint Global Ocean Flux Study was a national component of international JGOFS and an integral part of global climate change research.

The U.S. launched the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) in the late 1980s to study the ocean carbon cycle. An ambitious goal was set to understand the controls on the concentrations and fluxes of carbon and associated nutrients in the ocean. A new field of ocean biogeochemistry emerged with an emphasis on quality measurements of carbon system parameters and interdisciplinary field studies of the biological, chemical and physical process which control the ocean carbon cycle. As we studied ocean biogeochemistry, we learned that our simple views of carbon uptake and transport were severely limited, and a new "wave" of ocean science was born. U.S. JGOFS has been supported primarily by the U.S. National Science Foundation in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Energy and the Office of Naval Research. U.S. JGOFS, ended in 2005 with the conclusion of the Synthesis and Modeling Project (SMP).