Hopkins zooplankton (Monterey Bay)

CalCOFI Zooplankton Data from Monterey Bay (1955-1963) contains transcribed records of zooplankton composition and seasonal distribution, collected by the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University as part of the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) program to help understand the environmental conditions surrounding the collapse of the California sardine fishery. The dataset covers Monterey Bay, California, and spans 1955 to 1963, a subset of Hopkins Marine Station’s broader weekly CalCOFI sampling program that ran from March 1951 through June 1974. Data were collected through weekly field sampling and later transcribed from the original paper records through a crowdsourcing campaign. This dataset supports historical research on zooplankton community structure and seasonal patterns in Monterey Bay, extending oceanographic observations in the Northeast Pacific decades into the past, and is intended for researchers studying long-term or historical trends in zooplankton populations. This dataset covers only a subset of the full 1951 to 1974 Hopkins Marine Station sampling period; a separate program at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories continued similar sampling from 1974 to 1979.