A vocabulary for the configuration of net tows for collecting plankton and micronekton

Abstract

Collection of zooplankton is done using a wide array of instrumentation. To ensure the long-term value of zooplankton data, metadata about what the data are and when, where, and how the data were collected, plus the use of a domainspecific, controlled vocabulary is essential. It is especially important to use a controlled "deployment" vocabulary when plankton nets are used to collect data, and here we present a vocabulary of net deployment terms.