The willingness to pay (WTP) of people to protect animal populations can be used as a tool for these populations’ conservation. The WTP reflects the non-use value of animals, which can be significant for charismatic species. This value can be used as an economic criterion for decision-makers in order to recommend protective measures. The definition of the WTP to protect a species is challenging, as valuation methods are time-consuming and expensive. To overcome these limitations, we built a benefit transfer function based on 112 valuation studies and apply it to 440 Mediterranean marine species. We extracted these species from the IUCN database and retrieved some required parameters from, amongst others, the FishBase database. Marine mammals appear to have the highest WTP value followed in order by sea turtles, sharks and rays, and ray-finned fishes. Commercial fish species appear to have the highest values amongst the fish class.

As part of the marine water quality monitoring of the “Pertuis” and the “baie de l’Aiguillon” (France), commissioned by the OFB and carried out by setec énergie environnement, three monitoring stations were installed. Two of them were set up at the mouths of the Charente and Seudre rivers on February 6 and 27, 2019, respectively, while a third was deployed in the Bay of Aiguillon on March 24, 2021. The dataset presented here concerns the station installed in the Charente estuary. Measurements are organized into .csv files, with one file per year. Data is collected using a SAMBAT multiparameter probe, which records the following parameters: - Temperature (-5 to 35 °C) - Conductivity (0 to 10 mS/cm) - Pressure (0 to 10 m) - Turbidity (0 to 300 NTU) - Dissolved Oxygen (0 to 20 mg/L & 0 to 200 %) - Fluorescence (0 to 50 µg/l) - PH (0/14)

The general objective of the PEACETIME cruise is to study the fundamental processes and their interactions at the ocean-atmosphere interface, occurring after atmospheric deposition (especially Saharan dust) in the Mediterranean Sea, and how these processes impact the functioning of the pelagic ecosystem. During the proposed 33 days cruise in the western and central Mediterranean Sea in May 2017, we will study the impact of atmospheric deposition on the cycles of chemical elements, on marine biogeochemical processes and fluxes, on marine aerosols emission and how ongoing changes will impact the functioning of Mediterranean Sea communities in the future. The cruise is designed to explore a variety of oligotrophic regimes. Combining in situ observations both in the atmosphere and the ocean, and in situ and minicosm-based on-board process studies, the 40 embarking scientists from atmosphere and ocean sciences will characterize the chemical, biological and physical/optical properties of both the atmosphere and the sea-surface microlayer, mixed layer and deeper waters. The PEACETIME strategy (season and cruise track) associated to a combination of dust transport forecasting tools and near real-time satellite remote sensing is designed to maximize the probability to catch a Saharan dust deposition event in a stratified water column in order to follow the associated processes in-situ. This coordinated multidisciplinary effort will allow us to fill the current weaknesses/lacks in our knowledge of atmospheric deposition impact in the ocean and feedbacks to the atmosphere in such oligotrophic systems. As a key joint-project between MERMEX and CHARMEX : The PEACETIME project comes in the scope of the regional multidisciplinaryprogramme MISTRALS (Mediterranean Integrated STudies at Regional And Local Scales ), which aims at predicting the evolution of this region following strong expected changes in climate and human pressures. In this framework, the PEACETIME project constitutes a key joint project between the ChArMEx (the Chemistry-Aerosol Mediterranean Experiment) and MERMEx (Marine Ecosystems Response in the Mediterranean Experiment) initiatives, enabling to gather communities of atmospheric chemists and marine biogeochemists around the common question of assessing the impact of atmospheric deposition on the marine biogeochemical processes and air-sea exchanges.

This database contains hauls collated from 1965 to 2019, from fisheries dependent and independent data, from across eastern Atlantic waters and French Mediterranean waters. From this data diadromous fish spatio-temporal data was cleaned and standardised.

The ICES Working Group on Fisheries Benthic Impact and Trade-offs (WGFBIT) has developed an assessment framework based on the life history trait longevity, to evaluate the benthic impact of fisheries at the regional scale. In order to apply this framework to the Mediterranean sea, several Mediterranean longevity databases were merged together with existing North-East Atlantic ones to develop a common database. Longevity was fuzzy coded into four longevity classes: <1, 1-3, 3-10 and >10 years. Both benthic mega and macrofauna organisms are included in this dataset. Further details about both the purpose and the methodology may be found in ICES (2022) and Cuyvers et al. (2023). The result of the final dataset merging is one dataset containing the fuzzy coded average longevity (and standard deviation) for 2264 taxa and for each, the number of databases used. 

For the 21 years of the study, an examination of trends in chlorophyll concentration revealed a general decline throughout the Gulf over the production period. These trends, extracted from dynamic linear model, also allowed this decline to be quantified. Expressed as a percentage, a large part of the area below the 50 m bathymetric line showed a decrease of at least 10% over the period, corresponding to a value of at least 0.1 µg.l-1. However, the spatial distribution reveals some more local phenomena. In southern Brittany, from Quimper to Vannes, a particular feature appears, with an upward trend over several kilometres along the coast, followed by a pronounced gradient along the coast. This gradient includes a zone where a continuous monotonic increasing trend is observed, then a zone where the trend becomes not significant and finally, about 15 km from the coast, a new zone where a significant continuous monotonic decreasing trend is observed. The increase in chlorophyll a concentration in the very coastal part is greater than 0.1 µg.l-1 over the period. Another peculiarity concerns the central part, located at the edge of the plateau at Cap Ferrat and Pente Aquitaine, where an increase in chlorophyll a was observed, but the variations remained small, being less than 0.1 µg.l-1. About a hundred kilometres south-west of Saint Nazaire, an area of about 40 by 50 km shows a decrease in chlorophyll a of more than 20%, quantified as more than 0.1 µg.l-1 over the period.

These data are outputs of a spatio-temporal model inferring fish distribution. The maps are based on high-resolution catch data (VMS-logbook). They have a montly time resolution and a 0.05° spatial resolution. Four demersal species of the Bay of Biscay are available in the dataset: common sole (Solea solea), megrim (Lepidorhombus whiffiagonis), anglerfish (Lophius spp) and thornback ray (Raja clavata). Maps are provided for year 2008 to 2018 ; they were produced in the context of the MACCO project (https://www.macco.fr/en/accueil-english/), an Ifremer project that aims at proposing alternative management strategies for the mixed demersal fisheries of the Bay of Biscay.

The BenthOBS dataset includes long-term time series on marine benthic macrofauna, since 1967, along the whole French metropolitan coast. It includes 20 sampling location. BenthOBS aims to establish a national network for the observation of macrozoobenthos. In a context of global change, It is essential to have time series capable of highlighting and understanding ongoing changes in the specific diversity within communities and their consequences on the functioning of marine ecosystems. The BenthOBS network provides the scientific community and stackers with validated data on the following parameters: specific abundance, sediment size composition, sediment organic matter, sediment C content, sediment N content.

The dataset dcm_dtb.txt contains bio-optical measurements and environmental parameters associated with  Deep Chlorophyll Maxima (DCM) acquired by BGC-Argo profiling floats. For each BGC-Argo profile the data files includes the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and profile numbers, the Data Assembly Center (DAC), the geographical position (LON and LAT), the date of the profile in Julian Day (JULD) and in YYYY-MM-DD format; the region of the profile (REGION, acronyms detailed in the region.txt file), the DCM zonal attribution (ZONE, acronyms detailed in the zone.txt file), the vertical resolution of measurements of the concentration of the chlorophyll a [Chla] and of the backscattering coefficient (bbp) within the 250 first meters, the Mixed Layer Depth (MLD, m), the qualification of the vertical profile (DCM_TYPE) as Deep Biomass Maximum (3), Deep photoAcclimation Maximum (2), or presenting no DCM (1); the depth of the DCM (DCM_DEPTH); the chlorophyll a concentration (CHLA_DCM, mg chla m-3 ) the backscattering coefficient (BBP_DCM, m-1), and the Brunt-Vaisala frequency (N2_DCM) at the DCM depth; the nitracline depth (NCLINE_DEPTH, m) and steepness (NCLINE_STEEP, µmol NO3 m-3 m-1), the mean nitrate concentration within the Mixed Layer (NO3_MEAN_MLD, µmol NO3 m-3), the mean daily Photosynthetically Available Radiation in the Mixed Layer (MEAN_IPAR_MLD, E m -1 d -1), the daily Photosynthetically Available Radiation at the nitracline depth (IPAR_NCLINE, E m-2 d-1);  and the [Chla] measured by satellite (CHLA_SAT, mg chla m-3). The dataset shape_NASTG_ASEW.txt contains the seasonal median, the first and third quartiles of the [Chla] and of the bbp profiles for the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre and Atlantic SubEquatorial Waters regions. The dataset climato_NASTG_ASEW.txt contains the monthly mean and standard deviations of the DCM depth (DCM_depth), the isolume depth of daily Photosynthetically Available Radiation of 20 E m-2 d-1 (iPAR_20), the nitracline depth, and the Mixed Layer Depth (MLD) for the profiles within the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre and Atlantic SubEquatorial Waters regions.  The qualification and processing of the BGC-Argo profiles, as well as the DCM detection (DCM_TYPE) and the estimation of the environmental parameters, were applied as described from Cornec, M., Claustre, H., Mignot, A., Guidi, L., Lacour, L., Poteau, A., D’Ortenzio, F.,Gentili, B., Schmechtig, C., (to be updated.) Deep Chlorophyll Maxima in the global ocean: occurrences, drivers and characteristics. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, to be updated The [Chla] satellite variable was obtained by the match of each BGC-Argo profile with a L3S [Chla] product from the Ocean Colour-Climate Change Initiative v4.0 database merging observations from MERIS, MODIS, VIIRS and SeaWiFs, at a monthly and 4x4-km-pixel resolution, up to December 31, 2019 (ftp://oc-cci-data:ELaiWai8ae@oceancolour.org/occci-v4.2/).

Data collected by the Spindrift 2 Sails of Change vessel during its attempt at the round-the-world sailing record, the Jules Verne Trophy. More information at https://spindrift-racing.com/fr/.