The Helgoland Roads time-series, located at the island of Helgoland in the German Bight, approximately 60 km off the German mainland (54 11'N 7 54'E), is one of the richest temporal marine datasets available. The data set comprises a phytoplankton time series (started in 1962 and sampled daily) and a zooplankton time series (started in 1975 and sampled three times a week) along with time series for inorganic nutrients, salinity and temperature and several shorter time series (e.g. Chlorophyll and other data from ferrybox systems).
The high sampling frequency of the Helgoland Roads time series has provided a unique opportunity to study long-term trends in abiotic and biotic parameters, but also ecological phenomena, such as seasonal interactions between different food web components, niche properties, and the dynamics and timing of the spring bloom. It has also facilitated close examination of the dynamics of new species appearing in the local ecosystem.
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","License":null,"StandardTitle":"Helgoland Roads Time Series: phytoplankton","doi":null,"vlizDoi":null},{"DasID":315,"Acronym":null,"EngAbstract":"The Helgoland Roads Zooplankton time series was started in 1975 by Wulf Greve, initially at the Biologische Anstalt Helgoland institute and later continued in cooperation with the German Centre for Marine Biodiversity and the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency. It is now managed by the Biological Station Helgoland again.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday two oblique plankton net samples (150 μm, 500 μm) are collected from the monitoring site (54° 11' 18\" N, 7° 54' E). From each sample, almost 400 taxonomic entities of holoplankton and meroplankton (e.g., benthic and fish larvae) are identified and counted for abundance. The purpose of the Helgoland Roads programme is to monitor and document high frequency plankton population dynamics to detect and investigate community dynamics at seasonal and longer time scales and to better understand long-term changes in biodiversity.
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