Zooplankton biomasses from 624 lakes across Canada [2017-2019]

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).