For decades oceanographers have used plankton nets to collect samples for biological analysis. Results from these analyses need to be related to the environmental parameters. For this reason the STOQS UI has been modified to represent net tow data. An example showing the track of a vertical net tow with nearby Dorado measured oxygen is below:
SampledParameter datavalues from net tow subsamples may be explored using the STOQS UI. When related to in situ MeasuredParameter datavalues these data will provide important "ground truth" information for predictive machine learning model generation.
Though the STOQS database is designed for instantaneous (not integrative) data, it is able to hold integrative net tow data. This was accomplished through a convention of storing the start and end time and locations of the net tow in the Activity record and by programming the user interface to retrieve this information for representing net tow data. The same approach may be used for other types of integrative measurements and samples.