Quantitative zooplankton distributions from multifrequency acoustics

Abstract

A multifrequency acoustic profiling system consisting of 21 acoustic tranducers operating in the 0.1–10 MHz range can be used to resolve, quantitatively and continually, the distributions of zooplankton biomass and abundance in individual size classes ranging from hundreds of microns to centimeters. Data collected off southern California suggest coupling of biological and physical structure at a variety of horizontal and vertical scales.