Mesozooplankton biomass in the Celtic Sea: a first approach to comparing and combining CPR and LHPR data

Abstract

Zooplankton biomass varies on temporal, horizontal and vertical scales. However, data sets which incorporate all these dimensions at high resolution are very rare. Two devices which measure all these aspects have recently been simultaneously deployed in the Celtic Sea, the continuous plankton recorder (CPR) and the Longhurst–Hardy plankton recorder (LHPR). This demonstrates that integrated biomass derived from the LHPR are not significantly different from those derived using the CPR. Values have, therefore, been combined for the first time to describe the vertical distribution of mesozooplankton biomass at the Celtic Sea shelf edge through an annual cycle. This suggests that the surface biomass peak is broader at the shelf break than in the open ocean and in the autumn the main biomass peak may be below the depth sampled by the CPR.