As part of Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS), basin-scale ecosystem monitoring is using fishing vessels as ships of opportunity. Bio-acoustic data are collected from the vessel’s calibrated acoustic systems and a Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) is towed on basin-scale transits. These data can provide metrics for the behaviour, distribution and abundance of phytoplankton, zooplankton and micronekton to describe annual and multi-annual trends. The context for these data is strengthened when combined with other associated remotely-sensed or directly-sampled physical, chemical and biological information. We review a decade of data collected from the Tasman Sea region that is predicted to be a climate change hot spot, due in part to the strengthening and extension of the East Australian Current (EAC). The monitoring is placed in the context of associated remotely-sensed data and ad-hoc physical net sampling of the macro-zooplankton and micronekton of ~2 to 20 cm length (small crustaceans, gelatinous, squid and fish) that dominate the mesopelagic open ocean basins in this region. We use a suite of ecological metrics (e.g. size, density, diversity, trophic linkages and energetic transfer) to describe and interpret inter-annual changes. We show that there is strong congruence in behaviour between multiple trophic levels, with synchronous diel vertical migration. We show marked differences in the productivity of plankton and micronekton across the Tasman Sea. Our ability to detect changes in these ecological units and the potential uptake of the data to ecological models is discussed.