This project aims at implementing a workflow for the Pelagic Size Structure database (PSSdb), a global database of marine pelagic organisms size distribution. Size distribution observations will be integrated across multiple imaging sensors, including the Imaging FlowCytobot, the Underwater Vision Profiler, the Zooscan, and the In-situ Ichtyoplankton Imaging System, covering a broad range of marine plankton (few microns – 10 cm). Observations will be structured in three levels (level 1-3) of coarser taxonomic resolution, complemented with global interpolated predictions (level 4), and binned in 1×1-degree spatial coverage. Data levels will be made publicly available through NOAA websites. Funds will support two institutions, the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (led by PI Jessica Y. Luo) and the Sorbonne University Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche-sur-Mer (led by co-PI Rainer Kiko), for three years starting in April 2022.
