Understanding the spatial and temporal preferences of toxic phytoplankton species is of paramount importance in managing and predicting harmful events in aquatic ecosystems. In this study we address the realised niche of the species Alexandrium minutum, Pseudo-nitzschia fraudulenta and P. australis. We used them to highlight distribution patterns at different scales and determine possible drivers. To achieve this, we have developed original procedures coupling niche theory and habitat suitability modelling using abundance data in four consecutive steps: 1) Estimate the realised niche applying kernel functions. 2) Assess differences between the species’ niche as a whole and at the local level. 3) Develop habitat and temporal suitability models using niche overlap procedures. 4) Explore species temporal and spatial distributions to highlight possible drivers. Data used are species abundance and environmental variables collected over 27 years (1988-2014) and include 139 coastal water sampling sites along the French Atlantic coast. Results show that A. minutum and P. australis niches are very different, although both species have preference for warmer months. They both respond to decadal summer NAO but in the opposite way. P. fraudulenta realised niche lies in between the two other species niches. It also prefers warmer months but does not respond to decadal summer NAO. The Brittany peninsula is now classified as an area of prevalence for the three species. The methodology used here will allow to anticipate species distribution in the event of future environmental challenges resulting from climate change scenarios.

Three saltmarshes, Aiguillon, Brouage, Fier d'Ars, located in the Pertuis-Charentais Sea along the south-west coast of France, were studied to evaluate their sediment and mass accumulation rates (SAR; MAR) based on 210Pb and 137Cs profiles in sediments. Coastal saltmarshes play indeed an essential role in providing services such as coastal protection and supporting biodiversity. Saltmarshes are also critical environments for the accumulation of sedimentary organic carbon (blue carbon). However, the number of studies on saltmarshes remains underrepresented compared to studies on mangroves and seagrass. This work is a contribution to the effort to document sediment and mass accumulation rates of saltmarshes.A total of 16 1m sediment cores were collected in the three saltmarshes (Aiguillon, Brouage, Fier d'Ars) in 2021 and 2022 using an Eijkelkamp stainless steel peat sampler. Each sediment core was sampled every 1 cm from the top to the bottom of the core. The sediment layers were used to determine dry bulk density and selected radioisotope activities (210Pb, 226Ra, 137Cs, 228Th, 137Cs). Combining excess 210Pb and 137Cs has allowed to establish a reliable chronology of sediment deposition on a multidecadal timescale.

SOMLIT (Service d'Observation en Milieur Littoral) : a French Coastal Monitoring Network Coastal zones are where land, ocean and atmosphere interact. They are important for the exchange of matter and energy, and play a key role in (biogeo)chemical cycles at global scale. These environments are characterised by significant spatial and temporal variability of their physico-chemical and biological parameters due to local and seasonal meteorological drivers which are exacerbated by large-scale climate drivers (e.g. global warming, modification of the wind regime) and local-scale anthropogenic drivers (e.g. nutrient cycle changes linked to the use of fertilisers or the construction of large installations such as dams). These driving mechanisms are often interconnected. In the context of global warming (due to­­ climate and human-induced changes), the identification and understanding of their impact on coastal marine and littoral ecosystems is essential. The scientific objective of SOMLIT is to 1) characterise the multi-decadal evolution of coastal marine and littoral ecosystems, and 2) determine the climatic and anthropogenic drivers. In order to meet this objective, a nationally coordinated multi-site monitoring system was set up in the mid-1990s. The observation strategy is the same for each of the 12 monitored ecosystems with fortnightly sampling and/or measurements, at high tide (for sites subject to tides): 1) in surface-water for a range of 15 parameters (temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, nitrate, nitrite, ammonium, phosphate, silicate, suspended particulate matter, chlorophyll a, particulate organic carbon and nitrogen and stable isotopes of particulate organic carbon and nitrogen), 2) in surface-water for a range of 26 parameters of numbering and optical characteristics of pico- and nanoplankton), and 3) along the water column for temperature, salinity, fluorescence and PAR (vertical profiles of multi-parameter probes). SOMLIT’s activities are carried out under a quality assurance / quality control process based on the ISO 17025 standard. SOMLIT’s service provision objectives are to provide data and logistical support for research and other observation activities. SOMLIT has been officially accredited since 1996 as one of the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) National Observation Services (SNO). SOMLIT’s coordination is hosted by the Observatoire Aquitain des Sciences de l'Univers (University of Bordeaux / CNRS) and the service relies on strong partnerships with nine other institutions (University of Lille, University of the Littoral Opal Coast, University of Caen Normandy, Sorbonne University, University of Western Brittany, La Rochelle University, University of Montpellier, Aix Marseille University, National Museum of Natural History). SOMLIT is one of the nine networks that compose France’s Coastal Research Infrastructure (ILICO).  SOMLIT has strong ties with ILICO’s other networks such as the SNOs MOOSE (Mediterranean Ocean Observing System on Environment), PHYTOBS (microphytoplankton monitoring) and COAST-HF (Coastal Ocean Observing System - High Frequency).

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.

The SOMLIT-SOGIR time-series data characterize the hydrology of the Gironde Estuary ecosystem, located in the South-western France and flowing into the Bay of Biscay. Monthly-like measurements have been undertaken since 1997 by the OASU and EPOC teams (Univ. Bordeaux/CNRS). The SOMLIT-SOGIR time series is a part of the French monitoring network SOMLIT (https://www.somlit.fr/), labelled by the CNRS as a national Earth Science Observatory (Service National d’Observation : SNO). It aims to detect the long-term evolution of monitored ecosystems including both natural and anthropogenic forcings. Implemented at three sites (PK 30: 45.06833°N, 0.63833°W; PK 52: 45.24667°N, 0.725°W; PK 86:  45.5167°N, 0.95°W), the SOMLIT-SOGIR time series is among the oldest long-term coastal observation time series of the French Research Infrastructure dedicated to coastal ocean observations (RI ILICO, https://www.ir-ilico.fr). SOMLIT-SOGIR samples are collected at 1m below the water surface and 1m above the floor, at high and low tide, during slack water. Samples collected are analysed for 15 core parameters: water temperature and salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, phosphate, silicic acid, suspended particulate matter, particulate organic carbone, particulate nitrogen, chlorophyll a, delta15N and delta13C. CTD-PAR-profile is also performed at site PK86 during high tide. The SOMLIT network quality management system is in line with the ISO/IEC 17025:2017 standard: “General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories”. Further information on standard operating procedures for sample collection and data acquisition are available at: https://www.somlit.fr/parametres-et-protocoles. For more information on the quality flagging scheme: https://www.somlit.fr/codes-qualite/.

The French Atlantic coast hosts numerous macrotidal and turbid estuaries that flow into the Bay of Biscay that are natural corridors for migratory fishes. The two best known are those of the Gironde and the Loire. However, there are also a dozen estuaries set geographically among them, of a smaller scale. The physico-chemical quality of estuarine waters is a necessary support element for biological life and determines the distribution of species, on which many ecosystem services (e.g. professional or recreational fishing) depend. With rising temperatures and water levels, declining precipitation and population growth projected for the New Aquitaine region by 2030, the question of how the quality and ecological status of estuarine waters will evolve becomes increasingly critical. The MAGEST (Mesures Automatisées pour l’observation et la Gestion des ESTuaires nord aquitains) high-frequency monitoring of key physico-chemical parameters was first developed in the Gironde estuary in 2004 ; the Seudre and Charente estuaries were instrumented late 2020. First based on real-time automated systems, MAGEST is now equipped by autonomous multiparameter sensors. Depending of the stations, an optode is also deployed to secure dissolved oxygen measurement. By the end of 2020, MAGEST had 12 instrumented sites. Portets is a measuring station located in the upper Gironde estuary (Garonne subestuary, about 20 km upstream of the Bordeaux metropolis.

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 Bay of Aiguillon. Measurements are organized into .csv files, with one file per year. Data is collected using a WiMO multiparameter probe, which records the following parameters: •    Temperature (-2 to 35 °C) •    Conductivity (0 to 100 mS/cm) •    Pressure (0 to 30 m) •    Turbidity (0 to 4000 NTU) •    Dissolved Oxygen (0 to 23 mg/L & 0 to 250 %) •    Fluorescence (0 to 500 ppb)  

LOCEAN has been in charge of analyzing the isotopic composition of the dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) in sea water collected during a series of cruises or ships of opportunity mostly in the southern Indian Ocean , the North Atlantic, and the equatorial Atlantic, but also in the Mediterranean Sea and in the equatorial Pacific. The LOCEAN sea-water samples for δ13CDIC were collected in 125/25 ml glass bottles until 2022/since then and poisoned with HgCl2 (1 ml of saturated solution) before storage in a dark room à 4°C until their measurement. The DIC was extracted from the seawater by acidification with phosphoric acid (H3PO4 85%) and CO2 gas that was produced was collected in a vacuum system following the procedure described by Kroopnick (1974). The isotopic composition of CO2 was determined using a dual inlet-isotopic ratio mass spectrometer (SIRA9-VG) by comparing the 13C/12C ratio of the sample to the 13C/12C ratio of a reference material, the Vienna-Pee Dee Belemnite (V-PDB). The isotopic composition is expressed in the δ-unit defined by Craig (1957)(method type 2).  Experience showed that samples older than 3-4 years are likely to have experienced conservation issues and have been dismissed. The mass spectrometer has worked very well until 2014-2015. Afterwards, its aging as well as the aging of the preparation line resulted in more data loss, and often less accurate results. The preparation line was renovated in 2019, and analyses in 2020 were run manually, often repeating the measurement a second time for each sample. Up to 2007-2008, δ13CDIC values have a precision of±0.01 ‰ (Vangriesheim et al.,2009) and a reproducibility of±0.02 ‰. After an interlaboratory comparison exercise led by Claire Normandeau (Dalhousie  University),  results  suggest  that  recent  LOCEAN  samples have a slightly poorer reproducibility (±0.04 ‰ ) as well as an offset of -0.13‰ (details available in Reverdin et al., ESSD 2018) that is confirmed by Becker et al. 2016 work by comparison with other cruises after removing the anthropogenic signal. Recent comparisons in early May 2021 with Orsay GEOPS facility samples suggest that the current offset is much smaller and might be +0.03‰. LOCEAN has installed in 2021 a new measurement device by coupling a Picarro G2131-I cavity ring down spectrometer (CRDS) with a CO2 extractor (Apollo SciTech) that will measure at the same time DIC (method type 3) (Leseurre, 2022). Since then, all water samples have been analyzed on this device. Part of the data set, as well as a scientific context and publications are also presented on the WEB site https://www.locean-ipsl.upmc.fr/oceans13c. Individual files correspond to regional subsets of the whole dataset. The file names are based on two letters for the region followed by (-) the cruise or project name (see below) followed by –DICisotopes, followed by either -s (surface data) or -b (subsurface data), and a version number (-V0, …): example SI-OISO-DICisotopes-s-V0; the highest version number corresponds to the latest update of the cruise/project data set, and can be directly downloaded. Earlier versions can be obtained on request, but are not recommended. The region two letters are the followings:   - SI: station and surface data in the Southern Indian Ocean that include cruises : INDIGO I (1985 – stn) (https://doi.org/10.17600/85000111) CIVA I (1993 – stn & surf) (https://doi.org/10.17600/93000870) (Archambeau et al., JMS 1998) ANTARES (1993 – stn & surf) (https://doi.org/10.17600/93000600) OISO (*) (since 1998 – stn & surf) (https://doi.org/10.18142/228) (Racapé et al., Tellus 2010, Leseurre, 2022)   - EA: station and surface data in the Tropical Atlantic Ocean that include cruises : EQUALANT (1999 & 2000 – surf) (https://doi.org/10.18142/98) EGEE (2005 to 2007 – stn & surf) (https://doi.org/10.18142/95) PIRATA (since 2013 – stn & surf) (https://doi.org/10.18142/14) EUMELI 2 (1991 – stn) (https://doi.org/10.17600/91004011)  (Pierre et al., JMS 1994) BIOZAIRE 3 (2003 – stn & surf ) (https://doi.org/10.17600/3010120) (Vangriesheim et al., DSRII, 2009) TARA-Microbiomes (2021 - stn & surf)   - NA : station and surface data in the North Atlantic Subpolar gyre that include cruises : OVIDE (**) (since 2002 – stn & surf) (https://doi.org/10.17882/46448) (Racapé et al., 2013) RREX (2017 – stn & surf) (https://doi.org/10.17600/17001400) SURATLANT (since 2010 - surf) (https://doi.org/10.17882/54517) (Racapé et al., BG 2014 ; Reverdin et al., ESSD 2018, Leseurre, 2022) NUKATUKUMA (since 2017- surf)   - MS: station data in the Mediterranean sea that include cruises : ALMOFRONT 1 (1991 – stn) (https://doi.org/10.17600/91004211) VICOMED 3 (1990 – stn) (https://doi.org/10.17600/90000711)   - PO: tropical Pacific that include cruises : PANDORA (2012 – stn) (https://doi.org/10.17600/12010050) ALIZE2 (1991 – stn & surf) (https://doi.org/10.17600/91002711) (Laube-Lenfant and Pierre, Oceanologica Acta 1994)   - SO: station and surface data in the Southern Ocean (except OISO) that include cruises: TARA-Microbiomes (2021-2022, stn & surf) AGULHASII-072022 (2022, stn) CONFLUENCE (1993-1994, stn)   - AO: station and surface data in the Arctic Ocean and nearby seas that include cruises: GREENFEEDBACK (2024, stn&surf) TCA (2024, stn) REFUGE ARCTIC (2024, stn) (*) The values for cruises OISO19, 21 and 22 are doubtful (for some, too low) and will require further investigation to find whether adjusted values can be proposed. (**) Some of the OVIDE cruises are also referred to as or GEOVIDE (in 2014), and BOCATS (in 2016). CATARINA, BOCATS1 and BOCATS2 (PID2019-104279GB-C21/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) cruises were funded by the Spanish Research Agency  The values of the OVIDE 2010 stations are doubtful (too low), but no particular error was found, and they have been left in the files.   Data The files are in csv format reported as: - Cruise name, station id, (bottle number), day, month, year, hour, minute, longitude, latitude, pressure (db), depth (m), temperature (°C), temperature qc, salinity (pss-78), salinity qc, d13CDIC, d13CDIC qc, method type - Temperature is an in situ temperature - Salinity is a practical salinity - Method type (1) acid CO2 extraction from helium stripping technique coupled to mass spectrometer, (2) acid CO2 extraction in a vacuum system coupled to mass spectrometer,(3) CO2 extractor (Apollo SciTech) coupled to CRDS measurements. Temperature qc, salinity qc, d13CDIC qc are quality indices equal to: - 0 no quality check (but presumably good data) - 1 probably good data - 2 good data - 3 probably bad data - 4 certainly bad data - 9 missing data (and the missing data are reported with an unlikely missing value)

The West Gironde Mud Patch (WGMP) is a mud deposit located 25 km from the mouth of the Gironde Estuary in the Bay of Biscay. This 4-metre-thick clay-silt feature, which extends over an area of 420 km2, is found at depths between 30 and 80 meters. The main objectives of the JERICObent7 cruise, in July 2019, were to characterise the evolution of the WGMP’s benthic ecosystem in terms of its sedimentary, biogeochemical and ecological properties and to reconstruct climate variations and identify potential anthropogenic impacts over the last few centuries. To this end, a precise chronological framework was established for the sedimentary archives of the last few decades using 210Pbxs (T1/2 = 22.3 years). Interface cores were collected at stations 1, 3 and 4 along a cross-shelf transect. Twin Kullenberg cores were collected at sites 3 and 4 for geochemical (KGL) and palaeoceanographic (JB7-ST) investigations. Each interface core was carefully extruded at 0.5 cm intervals from the top of the core to 4 cm, and then at 1 cm intervals until the bottom was reached. Kullenberg cores were only collected at sites 3 and 4. Depending on their intended use, the Kullenberg cores were sampled at different resolutions, the depth of each sediment layer corresponded to the depth from the top of the core. These layers were then used to determine the dry bulk density and radioisotope activities of interest (210Pb, 226Ra,  228Th, 137Cs, 40K). Excess 210Pb was used to establish the realignment and chronological framework of the interface and Kullenberg cores.