Zooplankton biomasses from 624 lakes across Canada

We examined crustacean zooplankton biomass in 624 freshwater lakes spanning 12 ecozones within 6 continental drainage basins as part of the NSERC Canadian Lake Pulse Network project. Lakes were sampled once, over three summers (2017-2018-2019). Zooplankton were collected at the deepest point of each lake using a 100μm mesh Wisconsin net. Zooplankton were anesthetized with CO₂ (Alka-Seltzer) and samples were preserved at room temperature in 70% ethanol. Samples were identified to the species level by BSA Environmental Services (Ohio, U.S.A.) using a dissecting microscope (100x to 400x magnification). Species biomasses were calculated by BSA using the mean length of up to 10 measured individuals per taxon per lake (Beisner et al., 2021), and known size/weight relationships for each species (Dumont et al., 1975; McCauley, 1984; Lawrence et al., 1987).

The file “zooplankton biomass” contains the biomasses (µg d.w./L) of 102 crustacean zooplankton taxa from 624 lakes across Canada.

The file “lake location” contains the location (longitude and latitude coordinates) and respective Ecozone and Continental Basin allocations of the 624 lakes.