SCOR Working Group 125

Global Comparisons of Zooplankton Time Series

Chair(s)
David Mackas (Canada) and Hans Verheye (South Africa)
Other Full Members
Patricia Ayon (Peru), Sanae Chiba (Japan), Young-Shil Kang (Korea), Todd O’Brien (USA), Mark Ohman (USA), Chris Reason (South Africa), Anthony Richardson (Australia), and Andy Solow (USA)
Associate Members
Alyona Arashkevich (Russia), Hal Batchelder (USA), David Checkley (USA), Martin Edwards (UK), Juha Flinkman (Finland), A. Lopez-Urrutia (Spain), Welbjørn Melle (Norway), and L. Valdes (Spain)
Terms of Reference
  1. Identify and consolidate a globally representative set of “long zooplankton time series”.

  2. Facilitate migration of individual data sets to a permanent and secure electronic archive.

  3. Develop and share protocols for within-region and within-time period data summarization (e.g., spatial, seasonal and annual averaging, summation within taxonomic and age categories).

  4. Based on the above, develop priorities and recommendations for future monitoring efforts and for more detailed re-analysis of existing sample archives.

  5. Carry out a global comparison of zooplankton time series using (in parallel) a diverse suite of numerical methods, examining

    1. Synchronies in timing of major fluctuations, of whatever form.
    2. Correlation structure (scale and spatial pattern) for particular modes of zooplankton variability (e.g. changes in total biomass, replacement of crustacean by gelatinous taxa, alongshore or cross-shore displacements of zoogeographic distribution boundaries).
    3. Amplitude of variability, both for total biomass and for individual taxa, and comparison to the amplitude of population fluctuations of predator species (fishes, seabirds, marine mammals). Is there amplification at higher levels of the food web?
    4. Likely causal mechanisms and consequences for the zooplankton variability, based on spatial and temporal coherence with environmental and fishery time series.
    5. Sensitivity and specificity of data-analysis tools.
Approved
September 2004
Financial Sponsors
SCOR, U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, GLOBEC, ICES, PICES, SAHFOS
Meetings
  1. 7-10 November 2005 in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA

  2. 4-7 December 2006 in Lima, Peru

  3. 26 May 2007 in Hiroshima, Japan

  4. May 2008 in Gijón, Spain

Group Website
http://oceantimeseries.net/wg125/
Publications