MOCNESS

MOCNESS is the acronym for "Multiple Opening/Closing Net and Environmental Sampling System" and is a net system for plankton in the ocean. The system is towed behind a research vessel with a speed of 1.5 knots and consists of five to twenty nets with a mesh size from 64 µm to 3 mm and an area of 1 to 10 sqm which are opened and closed computer controlled at desired depth. The net enables biologists to catch zooplankton and nekton in various depth horizons mostly of the upper 100 m of the oceans. The system may include a CTD-probe to measure salinity and temperature at sampling depth.

Reference

P. H. Wiebe et al., 1985, New development in the MOCNESS, an apparatus for sampling zooplankton and micronekton, Marine Biology, 87(3), 313-323, doi|10.1007/BF00397811