EMODnet Chemistry aims to provide access to marine chemistry datasets and derived data products concerning eutrophication, acidity and contaminants. The importance of the selected substances and other parameters relates to the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). This aggregated dataset contains all unrestricted EMODnet Chemistry data on eutrophication and acidity, and covers the Mediterranean Sea. Data were aggregated and quality controlled by the 'Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Hellenic National Oceanographic Data Centre (HCMR/HNODC)' in Greece. ITS-90 water temperature and water body salinity variables have also been included ('as are') to complete the eutrophication and acidity data. If you use these variables for calculations, please refer to SeaDataNet for the quality flags: https://www.seadatanet.org/Products/Aggregated-datasets. Regional datasets concerning eutrophication and acidity are automatically harvested, and the resulting collections are aggregated and quality controlled using ODV Software and following a common methodology for all sea regions (https://doi.org/10.13120/8xm0-5m67 ) Parameter names are based on P35 vocabulary, which relates to EMODnet Chemistry aggregated parameter names and is available at: https://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/search_nvs/P35/. When not present in original data, water body nitrate plus nitrite was calculated by summing all nitrate and nitrite parameters. The same procedure was applied for water body dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), which was calculated by summing all nitrate, nitrite, and ammonium parameters. Concentrations per unit mass were converted to a unit volume using a constant density of 1.025 kg/L. The aggregated dataset can also be downloaded as an ODV collection and spreadsheet, which is composed of a metadata header followed by tab separated values. This spreadsheet can be imported to ODV Software for visualisation (more information can be found at: https://www.seadatanet.org/Software/ODV ).

EVHOE (« Evaluation Halieutique de l’Ouest Européen ») surveys provide observational data on bentho-demersal communities on the continental shelves of the Bay of Biscay and the Celtic Sea for more than 30 years. The surveys operate a standardized bottom trawling gear and are conducted from 15 to 600 m depth, usually in the fourth quarter of the year, starting at the end of October. The main objectives are the monitoring of 22 commercial stocks of fish species and 10 cephalopods from the North-East Atlantic. The dataset also provide a description of regional diversity, including 250 taxa of fish, 45 taxa of cephalopods and others “commercial” invertebrates and, from 2008, more than 350 other taxa of benthic invertebrates. The acquisition of this dataset, organised by IFREMER, is steered by the IBTS working group organised within the framework of ICES. It is being funded by the European DCMAP programme, in coordination with the French Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs, Fisheries and Aquaculture (DGAMPA). This dataset is of great interest for the long-term monitoring of the continental shelves of the Bay of Biscay and the Celtic Sea. Moreover, on a larger scale, by being integrated into a European network of bottom trawl surveys, these data play an essential role in studying the evolution of ecosystems from continental shelves to the scale of the eastern North Atlantic. From April 2025, the proposed data have been updated in the latest standard format recognised by IFREMER (‘ELFIC’ format). The 5 data tables are compiled in a .zip file which also contains a document detailing the content of each table and their respective data fields.

In October 2019 we chose 15 sites from the 2019 EVHOE survey for environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling. The French international EVHOE bottom trawl survey is carried out annually during autumn in the BoB to monitor demersal fish resources. At each site, we sampled seawater using Niskin bottles deployed with a circular rosette. There were nine bottles on the rosette, each of them able to hold ∼5 l of water. At each site, we first cleaned the circular rosette and bottles with freshwater, then lowered the rosette (with bottles open) to 5 m above the sea bottom, and finally closed the bottles remotely from the boat. The 45 l of sampled water was transferred to four disposable and sterilized plastic bags of 11.25 l each to perform the filtration on-board in a laboratory dedicated to the processing of eDNA samples. To speed up the filtration process, we used two identical filtration devices, each composed of an Athena® peristaltic pump (Proactive Environmental Products LLC, Bradenton, Florida, USA; nominal flow of 1.0 l min–1 ), a VigiDNA 0.20 μm filtration capsule (SPYGEN, le Bourget du Lac, France), and disposable sterile tubing. Each filtration device filtered the water contained in two plastic bags (22.5 l), which represent two replicates per sampling site. We followed a rigorous protocol to avoid contamination during fieldwork, using disposable gloves and single-use filtration equipment and plastic bags to process each water sample. At the end of each filtration, we emptied the water inside the capsule that we replaced by 80 ml of CL1 conservation buffer and stored the samples at room temperature following the specifications of the manufacturer (SPYGEN, Le Bourget du Lac, France). We processed the eDNA capsules at SPYGEN, following the protocol proposed by Polanco-Fernández et al., (2020). Half of the extracted DNA was processed by Sinsoma using newly developped ddPCR assays for European seabass (Dicentrachus labrax), European hake (Merluccius merluccius) and blackspot seabream (Pagellus bogaraveo).  The other half of the extracted DNA was analysed using metabarcoding with teleo primer. The raw metabarcoding data set is available at https://www.doi.org/10.16904/envidat.442 Bottom trawling using a GOV trawl was carried out before or after water sampling. The catch was sorted by species and catches in numbers and weight were recorded. No blackspot seabream individuals were caught.   Data content: * ddPCR/: contains the ddPCR counts and DNA concentrations for each sample and species. * SampleInfo/: contains the filter volume for each eDNA sample. * StationInfo/: contains metadata related to the data collected in the field for each filter. * Metabarcoding/: contains metabarcoding results for teleoprimer. * Trawldata/: contains catch data in numbers and weight (kg).      

Rocch, the french "mussel watch", provides chemical data for marine quality management. Once a year, trace metals, organic compounds (chlorinated, PAH, brominated flame retardants, perfluorinated compounds, organotins ...) are analysed in molluscs tissues to check chemical quality according to European Framework Directives and to Regional Seas Convention (OSPAR).

This dataset contains the biological outputs of a global ocean simulation coupling dynamics and biogeochemistry at ¼° over the year 2019. The simulation has been performed using the coupled circulation/ecosystem model NEMO/PISCES (https://www.nemo-ocean.eu/), which is here enhanced to perform an ensemble simulation with explicit simulation of modeling uncertainties in the physics and in the biogeochemistry. This dataset is one of the 40 members of the ensemble simulation. This study was part of the Horizon Europe project SEAMLESS (https://seamlessproject.org/Home.html), with the general objective of improving the analysis and forecast of ecosystem indicators.   See Popov et al. (https://os.copernicus.org/articles/20/155/2024/) for more details on the study.

Moving 6-year analysis of Water body dissolved oxygen concentration in the Mediterranean Sea for each season: - winter: January-March, - spring: April-June, - summer: July-September, - autumn: October-December. Every year of the time dimension corresponds to the 6-year centered average of the season. 6-years periods span from 1970-1975 until 2019-2024. Description of DIVA analysis: The computation was done with the DIVAnd (Data-Interpolating Variational Analysis in n dimensions), version 2.7.12, using GEBCO 30sec topography for the spatial connectivity of water masses. The horizontal resolution of the produced DIVAnd maps grids is dx=dy=0.125 degrees (around 13.5km and 10.9km accordingly). The vertical resolution is 27 depth levels: [0.,5.,10.,20.,30.,50.,75.,100.,125.,150.,200.,250.,300.,400.,500.,600.,700.,800.,900.,1000.,1100.,1200.,1300.,1400.,1500.,1750.,2000.]. The horizontal correlation length is 200km. The vertical correlation length (in meters) was set twices the vertical resolution: [10.,10.,20.,20.,40.,50.,50.,50.,50.,100.,100.,100.,200.,200.,200.,200.,200.,200.,200.,200.,200.,200.,200.,200.,500.,500.,500.]. Duplicates check was performed using the following criteria for space and time: dlon=0.001deg., dlat=0.001deg., ddepth=1m, dtime=1hour, dvalue=0.1. The error variance (epsilon2) was set equal to 1 for profiles and 10 for time series to reduce the influence of close data near the coasts. An anamorphosis transformation was applied to the data (function DIVAnd.Anam.loglin) to avoid unrealistic negative values: threshold value=200. A background analysis field was used for all years (1970-2024) with correlation length equal to 600km and error variance (epsilon2) equal to 20. Quality control of the observations was applied using the interpolated field (QCMETHOD=3). Residuals (differences between the observations and the analysis (interpolated linearly to the location of the observations) were calculated. Observations with residuals outside the minimum and maximum values of the 99% quantile were discarded from the analysis. Originators of Italian data sets-List of contributors: - Brunetti Fabio (OGS) - Cardin Vanessa, Bensi Manuel doi:10.6092/36728450-4296-4e6a-967d-d5b6da55f306 - Cardin Vanessa, Bensi Manuel, Ursella Laura, Siena Giuseppe doi:10.6092/f8e6d18e-f877-4aa5-a983-a03b06ccb987 - Cataletto Bruno (OGS) - Cinzia Comici Cinzia (OGS) - Civitarese Giuseppe (OGS) - DeVittor Cinzia (OGS) - Giani Michele (OGS) - Kovacevic Vedrana (OGS) - Mosetti Renzo (OGS) - Solidoro C.,Beran A.,Cataletto B.,Celussi M.,Cibic T.,Comici C.,Del Negro P.,De Vittor C.,Minocci M.,Monti M.,Fabbro C.,Falconi C.,Franzo A.,Libralato S.,Lipizer M.,Negussanti J.S.,Russel H.,Valli G., doi:10.6092/e5518899-b914-43b0-8139-023718aa63f5 - Celio Massimo (ARPA FVG) - Malaguti Antonella (ENEA) - Fonda Umani Serena (UNITS) - Bignami Francesco (ISAC/CNR) - Boldrini Alfredo (ISMAR/CNR) - Marini Mauro (ISMAR/CNR) - Miserocchi Stefano (ISMAR/CNR) - Zaccone Renata (IAMC/CNR) - Lavezza, R., Dubroca, L. F. C., Ludicone, D., Kress, N., Herut, B., Civitarese, G., Cruzado, A., Lefèvre, D.,Souvermezoglou, E., Yilmaz, A., Tugrul, S., and Ribera d'Alcala, M.: Compilation of quality controlled nutrient profiles from the Mediterranean Sea, doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.771907, 2011.

This visualization product displays the spatial distribution of the sampling effort (based on the start position of the sampling tow) over the six-years' period 2017-2022 from other specific protocols. EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Before 2021, there was no coordinated effort at the regional or European scale for micro-litter. Given this situation, EMODnet Chemistry proposed to adopt the data gathering and data management approach as generally applied for marine data, i.e., populating metadata and data in the CDI Data Discovery and Access service using dedicated SeaDataNet data transport formats. EMODnet Chemistry is currently the official EU collector of micro-litter data from Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) National Monitoring activities (descriptor 10). A series of specific standard vocabularies or standard terms related to micro-litter have been added to SeaDataNet NVS (NERC Vocabulary Server) Common Vocabularies to describe the micro-litter. European micro-litter data are collected by the National Oceanographic Data Centres (NODCs). Micro-litter map products are generated from NODCs data after a test of the aggregated collection including data and data format checks and data harmonization. A filter is applied to represent only micro-litter samplings carried out according to a very specific protocol such as the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) or Oceaneye. The spatial distribution was then determined by calculating the number of times each cell was sampled during the period 2017-2022, only taking into account the start position of the tows. The corresponding total distance (kms) sampled in each cell is also provided in the attribute table. Information on data processing and calculation are detailed in the attached methodology document. Warning: the absence of data on the map does not necessarily mean that they do not exist, but that no information has been entered in the National Oceanographic Data Centre (NODC) for this area. This work is based on the work presented in the following scientific article: O. Gerigny, M. Brun, M.C. Fabri, C. Tomasino, M. Le Moigne, A. Jadaud, F. Galgani, Seafloor litter from the continental shelf and canyons in French Mediterranean Water: Distribution, typologies and trends, Marine Pollution Bulletin, Volume 146, 2019, Pages 653-666, ISSN 0025-326X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.07.030.

This visualization product displays nets locations where research and monitoring protocols have been applied to collate data on microlitter. Mesh size used with these protocols have been indicated with different colors in the map. EMODnet Chemistry included the collection of marine litter in its 3rd phase. Before 2021, there was no coordinated effort at the regional or European scale for micro-litter. Given this situation, EMODnet Chemistry proposed to adopt the data gathering and data management approach as generally applied for marine data, i.e., populating metadata and data in the CDI Data Discovery and Access service using dedicated SeaDataNet data transport formats. EMODnet Chemistry is currently the official EU collector of micro-litter data from Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) National Monitoring activities (descriptor 10). A series of specific standard vocabularies or standard terms related to micro-litter have been added to SeaDataNet NVS (NERC Vocabulary Server) Common Vocabularies to describe the micro-litter. European micro-litter data are collected by the National Oceanographic Data Centres (NODCs). Micro-litter map products are generated from NODCs data after a test of the aggregated collection including data and data format checks and data harmonization. A filter is applied to represent only micro-litter sampled according to research and monitoring protocols as MSFD monitoring. Warning: the absence of data on the map does not necessarily mean that they do not exist, but that no information has been entered in the National Oceanographic Data Centre (NODC) for this area.

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. 

The flat oyster Ostrea edulis is a European native species that once covered vast areas in the North Sea, on the Atlantic coast and in other European coastal waters including the Mediterranean region. All these populations have been heavily fished by dredging over the last three centuries. More recently, the emergence of parasites combined with the proliferation of various predators and many human-induced additional stressors have caused a dramatic decrease in the last remaining flat oyster populations. Today, this species has disappeared from many locations in Europe and is registered on the OSPAR (Oslo-Paris Convention for the Protection of the Marine environment of the North-East Atlantic) list of threatened and/or declining species (see https://www.ospar.org/work-areas/bdc/species-habitats/list-of-threatened-declining-species-habitats). In that context, since 2018, the Flat Oyster REcoVERy project (FOREVER) has been promoting the reestablishment of native oysters in Brittany (France). This multi-partner project, involving the CRC (Comité Régional de la Conchyliculture), IFREMER (Institut Français de Recherche pour l’Exploitation de la Mer), ESITC (École Supérieure d’Ingénieurs des Travaux de la Construction) Caen and Cochet Environnement, has consisted of (1) inventorying and evaluating the status of the main wild flat oyster populations across Brittany, (2) making detailed analysis of the two largest oyster beds in the bays of Brest and Quiberon to improve understanding of flat oyster ecology and recruitment variability and to suggest possible ways of improving recruitment, and (3) proposing practical measures for the management of wild beds in partnership with members of the shellfish industry and marine managers. the final report of this project is available on Archimer : https://doi.org/10.13155/79506. This survey is part of the task 1 of the FOREVER, which took place between 2017-2021. Some previous data, acquired with the same methodology and within the same geographic area have been also added to this dataset. These data were collected during 30 intertidal and diving surveys in various bays and inlets of the coast of Bretagne. The localization of these surveys has been guided by the help of historical maps. In the field, the methodology was simple enough to be easily implemented regardless of the configuration of the sampled site. The intertidal survey was conducted at very low tide (tidal range > 100) to sample the 0-1m level. Sampling was carried out randomly or systematically following the low water line. Where possible (in terms of visibility and accessibility), dive surveys were also carried out (0-10m depth), along 100m transects, using the same methodology of counting in a 1m2 quadrat. As often as possible, geo-referenced photographs were taken to show the appearance, density and habitat where Ostrea edulis was present. All these pictures are available in the image bank file. Overall, this dataset contains a total of 300 georeferenced records, where flat oysters have been observed. The dataset file contains also information concerning the surrounding habitat description and is organized according the OSPAR recommendations. This publication gives also a map, under a kml format showing each occurrence and its characteristics. This work was done in the framework of the following research project: " Inventaire, diagnostic écologique et restauration des principaux bancs d’huitres plates en Bretagne : le projet FOREVER. Contrat FEAMP 17/2215675".