Plankton are the main food source in the majority of
marine ecosystems and have a crucial role in climate
change through primary production and the export of
carbon to the deep ocean. Understanding how ocean
biology and biogeochemical cycles contribute and
respond to climate and other global change is a major
challenge of high significance for the future of mankind.
Given their importance it is a major concern that, with
the exception of data collected by the Continuous
Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey, our knowledge of
plankton at ocean scales and over time is still
rudimentary. Using ships of opportunity, the CPR
survey has sampled the plankton for more than 75 years
in the North Atlantic, aided more recently by sister
surveys in Southern Ocean, North Pacific and
Australasian waters. Monitoring plankton variability
over large areas of oceanic and coastal water with the
CPR is efficient and cost effective and is a powerful,
proven tool for detecting and predicting oceanic impacts
of both global and climate change. There is an urgent
need to improve global coverage of plankton and
provide data for modelling. To address this need we
propose the development and implementation of an
integrated and appropriately funded global CPR
programme linked to SOOP/VOS. Our vision is to
build regional surveys with common standards for
sampling, analysis, data processing and sample storage
that generate compatible and freely exchangeable data.
It is envisaged that the resulting global network, of
preferably instrumented CPR routes, would be closely
associated with other traditional and new plankton
sampling and analysing technologies, plus remote
sensing and the Global Tracking Network (GTN). To
develop this network it is proposed that SAHFOS
should have a central role as a ‘Centre of Excellence’
for coordination, training and quality control, as well as
the production of indicators, habitat niche modelling
and other global outreach products.
Details
Publication status:
Published
Author(s):
Authors: Reid, Philip C., Bathmann, Ulrich, Batten, Sonia D., Brainard, Russell E., Burkill, Peter H., Carlotti, Francois, Chiba, Sanae, Conversi, Alessandra, Dickson, Robert R., Dooley, Harry, Edwards, Martin, Flinkman, Juha, Fukuchi, Mitsuo, Goes, Joaquim, Goni, Gustavo, Greene, Charles H., Hare, Jonathan A., Hays, Graeme C., Head, Erica, Hood, Raleigh R., Hosie, Graham, Hunt, Brian P.V., John, Anthony W.G., Jonas, Tanya D., Jossi, Jack W., Karlson, Bengt, Kim, Kuh Kim, Kirby, Richard R., Kitchener, John, Kobayashi, Donald, Lakkis, Sami, Llope, Marcos, Lopes, Rubens M., MacDiarmid, Alison, McQuatters-Gollop, Abigail, Malone, Tom, Matondkar, Prabhu, Muxagata, Eric, Pershing, Andrew, Richardson, Anthony J., Robertson, Don, Robinson, Karen, Sartimbul, Aida, Stenseth, Nils C., Sugisaki, Hiroya, Stevens, Darren, Vanden Berghe, Edward, Verheye, Hans, Vezzulli, Luigi, Ward, Peter
In: Hall, J., Stammer, D., Harrison, D.E. (eds.). Ocean Obs 09: Ocean information for society: Sustaining the benefits, realizing the potential, ESA Publications, 10 pp.