THREE-DIMENSIONAL ACOUSTIC VISUALIZATION OF ZOOPLANKTON PATCHINESS.doc.docVIP

THREE-DIMENSIONAL ACOUSTIC VISUALIZATION OF ZOOPLANKTON PATCHINESS CHARLES H. GREENE Ocean Resources and Ecosystems Program, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 PETER H. WIEBE Biology Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543 CHRIS PELKIE Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 MARK C. BENFIELD Coastal Fisheries Institute, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803 JACQUELINE M. POPP Biology Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 Abstract - Acoustic data were collected and visualized to characterize the 3-dimensional patchiness of zooplankton at a thermally stratified site on Georges Bank. The work was carried out as part of a field study conducted to examine the effects of springtime water-column stratification on the distributions of zooplankton and larval fish on the Bank. The acoustic data were acquired as the ship steamed a survey grid relative to the track of a surface drifter with a subsurface drogue. Although quite irregular in geographical coordinate space, the ships track relative to the moving water closely matched the intended grid pattern once the drifters movement in the tidal flow was taken into account. After changing coordinate systems to compensate for tidal advection, the acoustic data set was transformed from its curtain-like distribution in 3-dimensional space to a volumetric distribution. Two-dimensional point kriging was performed on the irregularly spaced data from each 2-m-thick depth stratum to produce a series of 2-dimensional, regularly spaced data grids. These data grids were then stacked to construct the 3-dimensional data grid required for volumetric visualization. A similar procedure was followed with the error variance values produced at each grid point through kriging to construct a three-dimensional, volumetric distribution of the error variance. To examine zooplankton patchiness within the surveyed volume of water, isosurfaces corresponding to specific levels of