No abstract

Size-based analyses of marine animals are increasingly used to improve understanding of community structure and function. However, the resources required to record individual body weights for benthic animals, where the number of individuals can reach several thousand in a square metre, are often prohibitive. Here we present morphometric (length–weight) relationships for 216 benthic species from the North Sea to permit weight estimation from length measurements. These relationships were calculated using data collected over two years from 283 stations. For ten abundant and widely dispersed species we tested for significant spatial and temporal differences in morphometric relationships. Some were found, but the magnitude of differences was small in relation to the size-ranges of animals that are usually present and we recommend that the regression relationships given here, based on pooled data, are appropriate for most types of population and community analyses. Our hope is that the availability of these morphometric relationships will encourage the more frequent application of size-based analyses to benthic survey data, and so enhance understanding of the ecology of the benthic/demersal component of marine ecosystems and food webs.

No abstract

The Belgian Phytoplankton Database (BPD) is a comprehensive data collection comprising quantitative phytoplankton cell counts from multiple research projects conducted since 1968. The collection is focused on the Belgian part of the North Sea, but also includes data from the French and the Dutch part of the North Sea. The database includes almost 300 unique sampling locations and more than 3,000 sampling events resulting in more than 86,000 phytoplankton cell count records. The dataset covers two periods: 1968 to 1978 and 1994 to 2010. The BPD can be accessed online and provides high quality phytoplankton count data. The species taxonomy is updated, and the count values are quality checked and standardized. Important metadata like sampling date, sampling location, sampling depth and methodology is provided and standardized. Additionally, associated abiotic data and biovolume values are available. The dataset allows to conduct analyses of long-term temporal and spatial trends in phytoplankton community structure in the southern part of the North Sea, including changes in phytoplankton phenology and seasonality.

The Kenya-Belgium data collection includes about 111,800 biotic observations on benthos, algae, fish, zooplankton, phytoplankton, birds and mangroves which cover more than 400 unique locations that were sampled between 1873 and 1999. The scope of this data digitization project was to recover data in theses and reports resulting from marine and coastal research activities in the Eastern African region conducted between 1984 and 1999. Data were digitized and quality checked in the frame of the Belgian LifeWatch project. The dataset provides a better insight into the different types of research conducted between 1985 and 1996 in frame of the Kenya-Belgium cooperation in marine sciences (KBP) project and can facilitate further coastal biodiversity research in Kenya.