Karen Wishner and Dawn Outram (URI)

As part of studies on the role of episodic features in the input and detrainment of Calanus from Georges Bank and in conjunction with Gifford and Sieracki's feeding studies, we sampled the "Cold Plume" (a Scotian Shelf Crossover) along with other locations on Georges Bank during two 1997 process cruises. Vertically-stratified MOCNESS tows of cold plume zooplankton were taken during EN298 (7 - 19 April ) and EN301 (23 May - 3 June). At this time, the Scotian Shelf Crossover water (defined as water <32 ppt salinity) had high abundances of total Calanus, and especially particular Calanus lifestages, when compared with other northeast peak and Georges Bank samples. This suggests that the crossovers transport assemblages of Calanus (and presumably other zooplankton) that differ in developmental phase (and possibly species composition) from the zooplankton already on the Bank. The importance of this phenomenon to Bank processes would depend on when and to what extent this water and its zooplankton assemblage mixes onto the Bank, potentially seeding the Bank with new populations.