Aurora Australis Voyage 7 (KROCK) 1992-93 Zooplankton Data

There were five objectives of this project: to define the distribution patterns and abundance of krill in the krill dominated continental shelf area of the Prydz Bay region; to define the krill population structure within this area and the distribution pattern of developmental stages, especially spawning females; to define the distribution patterns and composition of the other two principal communities, neritic and oceanic, which border the krill dominated community; to specifically determine the zooplankton composition within the main feeding area of Adelie Penguins from Bechervaise Island monitoring site, Mawson; to record and analyse various physical and biological processes, eg. salinity, temperature, ice and phytoplankton, to determine how these parameters affect the observed distribution patterns.

Surveys of krill and other zooplankton were taken in Prydz Bay, Antarctica between January and February 1993. At each station, rectangular midwater trawls and CTDs/bottle casts were made. During the program, echosounders and echointegrators were operating to provide krill abundance and distribution data, in addition to that from the RMT trawls.