Affiliation

• ¹Centre for Robotics & Neural Systems, Plymouth University, Plymouth PL4 8AA
• ²Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Prospect Place, Plymouth, PL1 3DH
• ³The Marine Institute, Plymouth University, Plymouth PL4 8AA

Corresponding Author

Culverhouse, P.F. Centre for Robotics & Neural Systems, Plymouth University, Plymouth PL4 8AA. Tel: +44 (0) 1752 600600; E-mail: pculverhouse@plymouth.ac.uk

Citation

Culverhouse, P.F., et al. An Instrumentfor Rapid Mesozooplankton Monitoring at Ocean Basin Scale. (2015) J Marine Biol Aquacult 1(1): 1- 11

Copy rights

© 2015 Culverhouse, P.F. This is an Open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Keywords

Abstract

  The development and testing of a new imaging and classification system for mesozooplankton sampling over very large spatial and temporal scales is reported. The system has been evaluated on the Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT), acquiring nearly one million images of planktonic particles over a transect of 13,500km. These images have been acquired at a flow rate of 12.5L per minute, in near-continuous underway mode from the ships seawater supply and in discrete mode using integrated vertical net haul samples. The aim of this development is to produce an instrument capable of delivering autonomously acquired and processed data on the biomass and taxonomic distribution of mesozooplankton over ocean-basin scales, in or near real-time, so that data are immediately available without the need for significant amounts of post-cruise processing and analysis. The hardware and image acquisition and processing software system implemented to support this development, together with some preliminary results from AMT21, are described. The images acquired during this Atlantic cruise comprise microplankton, mesoplankton, fish larvae and sampling artefacts (air bubbles, detritus, etc.), and were classified to one of 7 pre-defined taxonomic classes with 67% success.