The ICES Phytoplankton & Microbial Plankton Status Report

The ICES Science Plan adopts an ecosystem approach to management that is built on scientific capacity to understand ecosystem functioning. To understand, one should first know; to know, one should first observe. To understand well and to know much, one should observe far and wide and for long and always. This, in a manner of speaking, is the rationale for multidecadal oceanic ecological datasets and their application in marine ecology and biogeochemistry as well as in marine policy and management.

In WGPME's first full report (CRR-313, available below), the ecological status of phytoplankton and microbial plankton of the North Atlantic and adjacent seas is presented by reference to seven geographical regions containing 61 monitoring locations, and to 40 standard areas of the Continuous Plankton Recorder survey. Coverage stretches from the subpolar waters of the Labrador Sea to the subtropical waters of southwestern Iberia, and extends into the Mediterranean Sea.

Available Reports:

CRR-313 : [small-version : 20 MB pdf ] [ larger-version : 60 MB pdf ] The CRR-313 files above are very large (20-60 MB). For best results, "right-click save-as" this file to your desktop and then open it from there. The larger version will produce cleaner graphics for viewing and printing. If you try to open the larger file directly in your web browser, it may freeze up. Todd has noticed the Firefox and Adobe are not playing nicely together lately. Google Chrome and Microsoft IE seem to load larger PDF files "better" at the moment.   WGPME's pliot study ("Towards an ecological status report for phytoplankton and microbial plankton in the North Atlantic.") is also available. ICES-CM-2011/B02 : 2011 [ 2 MB pdf ]