Monthly data of mesozooplankton abundance and biomass for a shelf station off A Coruña (NW Spain): 1990-2018

Abundance and biomass of mesozooplankton (>200µm) in monthly samples collected in a shelf station off A Coruña (NW Spain) between 1990 and 2018. Zooplankton sampled approximately at monthly intervals between January 1990 and December 2018 at Station E2CO (A Coruña, NW Spain) with double-oblique tows (0-50 m depth) of a 50 cm diameter Juday-Bogorov plankton net with 250 μm (until 1997) or 200 μm (from 1997 onwards) mesh size. The net was equipped with a General Oceanic Flowmeter for the calculation of water filtered and a depth recorder. All samples were collected between 10:00 and 14:00 (local time) and were preserved in 2−4% sodium borate-buffered formaldehyde. Sub-samples were taken to estimate total zooplankton abundance (N m−3) by direct examination using a stereo microscope, and biomass (in mg DW m−3) by weighting dried aliquots (50 °C, 48 h). Species names referenced to the Word Register of Marine Species (last access: June 2019). Zooplankton identification and counts were made by M.T. Álvarez-Ossorio (until 2015), E. Rey and M.A. Louro (from 2016 onwards). These series are part of the long-term observational project RADIALES (Instituto Español de Oceanografía, IEO, Spain).