This dataset contains results from the Second International BIOMASS Experiment II (SIBEX II) cruise of the Nella Dan, January 1985. This cruise is the fourth cruise out of a series of six, investigating the distribution, abundance and population structure of krill Euphausia superba in the Prydz Bay region, Antarctica. SIBEX II was co-ordinated with South Africa, Japan and France, and 66 grid sampling stations covered an area from 58 degrees to 93 degrees East and from 60 degrees South to the Antarctic coast. At each sampling station, surveys of krill and other zooplankton were taken, as well as a CTD cast and water collection for phytoplankton pigment, nutrients and primary production measurement. Species identity and abundance data were obtained. The major species investigated were Euphausia superba, Euphausia frigidia, Euphausia crystallorophias and Thysanoessa marcuria. Other pteropods and cephalopods were also studied, as well as results from hydroacoustic surveys of krill biomass. Summary results are listed in the documentation. The fields in this dataset are: species Station Number Haul Type RMT Biomass Weight Flowmeter Latitude Longitude Time Date Ice Sea State Density Sea Floor Maturity This dataset was updated by Angela McGaffin. This download file also contains the original dataset provided in 2007. There are four files available: SIBEX_II_krill.xls (original file) sibex2_krill_morphometrics.xslx sibex2_station_data.xslx sibex2_zooplankton_corrected.xls A minor data update took place on 202211-03 to add a scanned copy of the original acoustics log.

Krill Ecology - Technical Reports and Systems Guides A series of documents detailing work completed and methods used at the Krill Aquarium located at the Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report # Title and Author Technical Report 1. 26th January 1994. DAPI Epiflourescence Technique. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 2. 5th March 1995. Bag Culture - Cell Growth Count Protocol. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 3. 12th January 1996. Chemical 'Spiking' of Krill Aquarium Bio-filter T12. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 4. 24th June 1996. Cold Temperature Algal Bag Culture Methodology. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 5. 16th April 1997. Algal Bag Culture - Harvesting Method. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 6. 26th October 1999. Aquarium System Bulk Seawater Collection and Storage. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 7. 11th October 1999. Sodium Hypochlorite Treatment of Algal Bag Culture Filtration Unit. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 8. 18th October 1999. Feeding Krill - Algal Strains, Feeding Rate and Nutritional Values. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 9. 22nd November 1999. Krill Biology Section - Parental Algal Culture Maintenance. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 10. 10th April 2000. Krill Group Databases and Maintaining Daily Data Records. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 11. 11th May 2000. Making Up and Use of Iodine Solution as an Indicator of the Presence of Chlorine in Freshwater. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 12. 1st June 2000. Testing for Harmful Ammonia (NH3) in Aquarium Sea Water. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 13. 12th June 2000. Digitron Digilog 2088T Digital Temperature Logger/Gauge - Operating Instructions and Down-Loading Logged Data Guide. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 14. 27th June 2000. Krill Biology - Marine Science Support Shed Gear Storage. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 15. 15th October 2000. Making up of fe Growth Media Stock Solutions for Parental and Algal Bag Culture Production. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 16. 15th January 2001. Algal Bag Culture - Growth Rate Analysis. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 17. 19th July 2004. Protective Epoxy Coating of Onga Seawater Collection Fire Pump. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 18. 27th October 2004. New Krill Aquarium - Bulk Seawater Collection and Storage Logistics. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 19. 11th March 2005. New Krill Aquarium - Algal Bag Culture Filtration System. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 20. 6th April 2005. New Culture Cabinet Bag to Bag Inoculation Procedure. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 21. 17th June 2005. Agar Bacterial Plate Testing for Krill Algal Culture Stocks. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 22. 29th July 2004. New Algal Culture Cabinet - Bag Culture Setup Methodology. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 23. 24th May 2005. Protocol for Sterilization of Bag Culture Air Supply System. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 24. 30th May 2005. 200 litre tank Algal Batch Culture Setup. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Technical Report 25. 22nd June 2005. Making Up and Shaping Plastic Bags for Algal Culture. Author: P. M. Cramp. Australian Antarctic Division. Techincal Report 26. 19th

Sampling Samples were collected on board the RSV Aurora Australis between 22 January and 17 February 2016. The cruise surveyed the region south of the Kerguelen Plateau including the Princess Elizabeth Trough and BANZARE Bank in a series of eight transects covering 8165 km. Plankton communities were collected at 45 conductivity temperature depth (CTD) stations and seven additional underway stations, with biological replicates collected at two stations (52 independent sites). Surface water was sampled from 4 plus or minus 2 m depth using the uncontaminated seawater line. Deep Chlorophyll Maximum (DCM, 10-74 m) water samples were obtained using 10 L Niskin bottles mounted on a Seabird 911+ CTD. Plankton communities were size-fractionated by sequentially filtering 10 L seawater through 25 mm 20 micron (nylon) and 5 micron filters (PVDF), and 0.45 micron Sterivex filters (PVDF). Filters were stored frozen at -80 °C. DNA extraction and high-throughput sequencing DNA was extracted from half of each filter using the MoBio PowerSoil DNA Isolation kit at the Australian Genome Research Facility (AGRF, Adelaide, Australia; http://www.agrf.org.au). The V4 region of the 18S rDNA (approximately 380 bp excluding primers) was PCR-amplified using universal eukaryotic primers from all extracts and sequenced on an Illumina MiSeq v2 (2 x 250 bp paired-end) following the Ocean Sampling Day protocol (Piredda et al. 2017). Amplicon library preparation and high-throughput sequencing were carried out at the Ramaciotti Centre for Genomics (Sydney, Australia). Sequence analysis, OTU picking and assignment followed the Biomes of Australian Soil Environments (BASE) workflow (Bissett et al. 2016). Taxonomy was assigned to OTUs based on the PR2 database using the ‘classify.seqs’ command in mothur version 1.31.2 with default settings and a bootstrap cut-off of 60%. OTUs representing any terrestrial contaminants (e.g. human) and samples with low sequencing coverage (less than 7000 reads) were removed from the dataset. The date of sea ice melt for each station was estimated from daily SSM/I-derived sea-ice spatial concentration from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) at 25 x 25 km resolution. Days since melt was considered to be the number of days between the date on which sea ice concentration first fell below 15% and the date of sampling. Other environmental variables included are in situ chlorophyll a, as an indicator of biological production, and near-surface salinity (mean over the upper 10 m) as an indicator for recent sea ice melt. Both environmental measurements were taken from the associated CTD seawater samples. The surface chlorophyll a in seawater (1-2 L) collected in Niskin bottles was analysed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC, provided by Karen Westwood and Imojen Pearce, Australian Antarctic Division, doi:10.4225/15/5a94c701b98a8). Sampling times are given in UTC.

Large volumes of water (200 - 500 L) were filtered and fractionated by size for various planktonic components: eukaryotic phytoplankton, prokaryotic picoplankton, and marine viruses. Sample sites were chosen to generate the widest diversity, and included planktonic blooms, oligotrophic zones, small polynyas near sea ice, nearshore areas, and Antarctic bottom water from coastal, canyon and deepwater areas. Half of each sample will be used for DNA library construction, and the other half will be used for meta-proteomic analysis. Random shotgun sequencing of the marine genomic libraries should produce a metagenomic snapshot of planktonic life in a variety of marine habitats. This work was completed as part of ASAC project 2899 (ASAC_2899).

Large volumes of water (200 - 500 L) were filtered and fractionated by size for various planktonic components: eukaryotic phytoplankton, prokaryotic picoplankton, and marine viruses. Sample sites were chosen to generate the widest diversity, and included planktonic blooms, oligotrophic zones, small polynyas near sea ice, nearshore areas, and Antarctic bottom water from coastal, canyon and deepwater areas. Half of each sample will be used for DNA library construction, and the other half will be used for meta-proteomic analysis. Random shotgun sequencing of the marine genomic libraries should produce a metagenomic snapshot of planktonic life in a variety of marine habitats. This work was completed as part of ASAC project 2899 (ASAC_2899).

Distribution and abundance of zooplankton, krill and fish were observed on the K-axis transect using deployments of RMT1+8 net. Towing speed of the RMT1+8 were approximately 2 knots. All krill, fish and squid in the catch were sorted, identified to species and counted. The density at each station were determined from the counts per calibrated flow-meter readings attached to the net. Morphometric measures were taken and, for larger taxa. List of files K-Axis Morph combined_for data centre.xlsx: Morphological data for all krill and zooplankton captured in RMT-8 net haul. RMT data entry_v1_for data centre.xlsx: Trawl data. RMT8 filtered volume_for data centre.xlsx: Filtered volume for each haul. Map_all.tif: Map showing all trawl stations. Map_RMTR.tif: Map showing only regular trawl stations. Map_RMTT.tif: Mapn showing only target trawl stations. K-Axis description This dataset includes biological data from “K-Axis voyage, 2016 and “Voyage 3, 2015”. [Data from K-Axis voyage, 2016] Distribution and abundance of zooplankton, krill and fish were observed on the K-axis transect using deployments of RMT1+8 net. Towing speed of the RMT1+8 were approximately 2 knots. All krill, fish and squid in the catch were sorted, identified to species and counted. The density at each station were determined from the counts per calibrated flow-meter readings attached to the net. Morphometric measures were taken and, for larger taxa. -List of files- K-Axis Morph combined_for data centre.xlsx: Morphological data for all krill and zooplankton captured in RMT-8 net haul. Map_all.tif Map_RMTR.tif Map_RMTT.tif RMT data entry_v1_for data centre.xlsx: Trawl data. RMT8 filtered volume_for data centre.xlsx: Filtered volume for each haul. [Data from Voyage 3, 2015] The Australian Antarctic research and resupply vessel, RV Aurora Australis, was directed to undertake an opportunistic marine science survey for 17 days during 21 February to 10 March 2015 using ship time that became available due to unexpectedly favourable ice conditions for Mawson station resupply. The purpose of this opportunistic Marine Science work was to assess: 1. The spatial variability, particularly along the shelf break, of the prey field for penguins, flying seabirds and marine mammals in East Antarctica. 2. The small scale variability of prey in key foraging locations near to land-based colonies of penguins and flying seabirds in East Antarctica. 3. Feasibility and potential of utilising annual station resupply voyages as a cost effective means to undertake monitoring and research to better understand the ecosystem in the region. The survey completed 5 acoustic box surveys including a total of 53 RMT target and routine trawls, 6 demersal trawls, 131 phytoplankton samples from underway sampling, and 214 hourly observations of predators. These activities were successfully supervised remotely. -List of files- emm-15-22.pdf: Prelminary report of the voyage to CCAMLR WG-EMM Figure_V3_all_euphausiids.pdf: Map of Euphausiid abundance distribution. Figure_V3_Clione_antarctica.pdf: Map of Clione antarctica abundance distribution. Figure_V3_crystal_krill.pdf: Map of Euphausia crystallorophias abundance distribution. Figure_V3_frigida.pdf: Map of Euphausia frigida abundance distribution. Figure_V3_larval_fish_abundances.pdf: Map of fish larvae abundance distribution. Figure_V3_superba.pdf: Map of Antarctic krill abundance distribution. Figure_V3_tmacrura.pdf: Map of Thysanoessa macrura abundance distribution. V3_final_for data centre.xlsx: Trawl station data and density data of each taxa caught. Voyage 3 Marine Science Program Final.docx: Voyage report.