Data derived from net catches for zooplankton and micronekton during the COMICS cruise DY086 in November to December, 2017. Raw catch counts and biomass measurements have been used alongside published values to provide biomass, respiration and ingestion data between 0 and 500 metres depth (Belcher et al. 2022, Cook et al. 2023, Stowasser et al. 2020). Data values are from multiple net deployments and the number of deployments for each value are provided in the dataset. Bongo, Multiple Opening/Closing Net and Environmental Sensing System (MOCNESS) and Rectangular Midwater Trawl (RMT) nets collected small (100 μm mesh; day only), medium (330 μm mesh; day and night) and large (4000 μm mesh; day and night) samples, respectively.