ABSTRACT 



This report provides ichthyoplankton and associated station 

 and tow data from California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries 

 Investigations (CalCOFI) cruises conducted off California and 

 Baja California in 1966. It is the sixteenth report in a series 

 that presents these data for all biological-oceanographic CalCOFI 

 surveys from 1951 to the present. A total of 1977 stations was 

 occupied during 11 monthly multivessel cruises over a survey area 

 which extended from Pt. Reyes, California to Pt. San Juanico, 

 Mexico and seaward to several hundred miles. The data are listed 

 in a series of 6 tables; the background, methodology, and 

 information necessary for interpretation and guantitative 

 analysis of the data are presented in an accompanying text. All 

 pertinent station and tow data, including volumes of water 

 strained and standard haul factors, are listed in the first table. 

 Another key table lists, by station and month, standardized counts 

 of each of the 156 larval fish categories identified from survey 

 samples. This and previous and subseguent reports make the 

 CalCOFI ichthyoplankton and station data available to all 

 investigators and serve as guides to the newly developed computer 

 data base. 



INTRODUCTION 



This report, the sixteenth of a series, provides 

 ichthyoplankton and associated station and tow data from 

 California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) 

 joint biological-oceanographic survey cruises conducted in 1966. 

 This program was initiated in 1949, under the sponsorship of the 

 Marine Research Committee of the State of California, to study 

 the population fluctuations of the Pacific sardine (Sardinops 

 sagax) and the environmental factors that may play a role in such 

 fluctuations. CalCOFI, known as the California Cooperative 

 Sardine Research Program from 1949 to 1953, was made up of 

 representatives of the South Pacific Fisheries Investigations 

 (SPFI) of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [now the La Jolla 

 Laboratory, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) ] , the 

 Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) , the California 

 Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) , the California Academy of 

 Sciences (CAS) and the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford 

 University. The first three of these agencies supplied ships and 

 personnel to conduct the sea surveys. NMFS processed the 

 plankton samples and analyzed the ichthyoplankton from them. SIO 

 processed and analyzed the hydrographic samples and measurements 

 and also analyzed invertebrate groups from the plankton samples. 



The boundaries, station placement, and sampling freguency 

 for the CalCOFI survey area were based on the results of joint 

 biological and oceanographic cruises conducted by NMFS and SIO 

 during 1939-41. Those cruises were designed to collect sardine 

 eggs and larvae and associated hydrographic data over the entire 

 areal and seasonal spawning range of the species. On these 

 survey cruises, plankton tows were made to 70 m, a depth which 



