The "interactive atlas" provides group-by-group taxonomic summaries and data compilations for all of the plankton currently available in the COPEPOD online database.   For each major plankton grouping (e.g., "zooplankton", "phytoplankton", "total biomass" ) and minor plankton grouping (e.g., "copepods", "diatoms", "total displacement volume" ), data coverage maps (global and by-season) and a full taxa name listing (the species and names recorded) are provided.   Each summary page also provides a link so you can download a "compilation" of all group-relevant samples for that taxa group.

Each compilation is created by selecting only those group-member taxa from each data sub-collection present in full COPEPOD.   These are not new COPEPOD data, only 'conveniently repackaged' data from the individal COPEPOD data collections, based on the "short format" data export option.   These compilations are useful when you are only interested in "diatom" data or "copepod" copepod or "biomass" data for the entire world.   If you want the full meta data or all identified taxa groups within the sample, you should use the full content data present in the regional or individual collections.