Documents

Report on the Status and Trends of Southern Ocean Zooplankton based on the SCAR Southern Ocean Continuous Plankton Recorder (SO-CPR) Survey

2020

Edited by Kunio T. Takahashi and Graham W. Hosie

Zooplankton are a crucial link in the Antarctic marine ecosystem and changes in the zooplankton are likely to have substantial flow on effects through the rest of the food web. This report has collated the current knowledge of the status of zooplankton, e.g. what species are known, community structure, biogeography, based on the analysis of the SO-CPR dataset, and 69 publications in peer-reviewed research papers, chapters, atlases, and reviews. The report brings all that information together and highlights achievements over nearly 30 years, and includes some new analyses identifying trends (seasonal or long term) in relation to changes in abundance, shifts in distribution, and community composition.

This report is a product of the Expert Group on CPR Research. It is hoped that this will be a living report that will include updated information as the SO-CPR datasets continues to grow and be analysed.