This data report is for midwater fishes collected during the
multidisciplinary Warm-Core Rings Program in 1981 and 1982.
Stations were made in and near three warm-core rings on five cruises
within a period of 14 months. On Atlantis II cruise 110 (September-October
1981) six stations were made in and around ring 81-D (age two months).
Stations were made in the vicinity of ring 82-B on three cruises in
1982--twelve stations during Oceanus 118 (April) when the ring was two months
old, 15 stations during Oceanus 121 (June) at age four months, and 19 stations
during Oceanus 125 (August) at age 5.5 months. Finally, twelve stations were
made in and near meander/ring 82-H (age 0) during Knorr 98 in
September/October 1982 (Tables 1-10).
The collections were made with a new midwater trawl - the MOCNESS-20
(MOC-20) (Wiebe et al., 1985), a scaled-up version of the MOCNESS-1 (an
apparatus for collecting zooplankton; Wiebe et al., 1976) and successor to the
MOCNESS-10 (like the MOC-20, a midwater trawl). (The number forming the
distinctive part of the name of these nets is equal to the area of the
projected mouth in square meters when the apparatus is in a common fishing
attitude.) The MOC-20 consists of a set of 3-mm mesh rectangular nets that
can be opened and closed by command from the surface via a signal-conducting
towing warp. Apparatus attached to the net frame measures and transmits
depth, temperature, conductivity, flow, and net-frame angle to the towing
ship's laboratory. Flow (net speed), vertical velocity, and net-frame angle
allow computation of the water volume filtered . On the WCR cruises a set of
five or six nets was used. One net (not used for quantitative analyses) was
fished down to 1000 m, then closed and a second net opened. The second and
successive nets were closed and opened sequentially at intervals as the
apparatus was brought back to the surface. A surface-to-surface cycle with
the gear is referred to as a station, the contents of a single net as a
collection. In addition to be1ng described by latitude and longitude,
stat1ons are located in the same radial coordinate system used to composite
the warm-core rings physical data, that is, by distance and bearing from the
moving ring center.Funding was provided by the National Scten.ce Foundation
under Grant Numbers OCE 80-17270 and OCE 86-20402
