Sea-ice protist (including ice algae) abundance and biodiversity data from ice coring at the main coring sites (MCS_FYI and MCS_SYI) and ridges during MOSAiC legs 2 to 4 in 2019/2020

The data has been collected during the expedition "Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate" (MOSAiC) from September 2019 to September 2020 on research vessel Polarstern. The dataset contains abundance of sea ice protists, including ice algae (autotrophic) and protozoa (heterotrophic). Protists were identified and counted with light microscopy using the Utermöhl method and the result are given as cells per liter (cells/L) called Abundance. Sea ice samples were collected with a 9 cm diameter ice corer (Kovacs Enterprise) from both level and ridge ice. The samples were collected from the bottom part of the ice core and generally sectioned from 0-3 cm, 3-10 cm and in 10 cm intervals thereafter. With some exceptions, ice core sections were melted in filtered sea water at 4°C. Melted samples were preserved using Lugol-formaldehyde mixture with a few drops of acidic Lugol solution and hexamethylenetetramine-buffered formalin at a final concentrations of 1%.