Zooplankton was collected at 10 stations in the epipelagic zone from 200 m up to the surface layer by vertical hauls (0.5m s−1) of a WP-2 standard net (Hydrobios) with 200 μm mesh size. The nets were carefully rinsed and the samples were halved, on board with a Folsom splitter. The first half was used for dry mass biomass determination and the other half was preserved in a seawater sodium tetraborate buffered formaldehyde solution (4% final concentration) for later determination of zooplankton composition and abundance. This data collection was funded by ...