European Ocean Biodiversity Information System

[ report an error in this record ] Print this page

MADS - Marine benthic soft-sediment macrozoobenthos
Contact: Josefson, Alf

Availability: Unrestricted
The data are freely available to anybody and may be used for any purpose. Usage acknowledgement may be required

Description
Data contain abundance (number of individuals) and biomass (wet weight or dry weight) information. more

Benthic macrofauna Investigations of benthic macrofauna, in particular from soft sediments, have a long tradition, with the first quantitative studies in Scandinavian waters performed over 100 years ago. Benthic macrofauna is important as food for demersal fish, the cycling of organic matter and contaminants, and not the least as an indicator of environmental quality. Benthic macrofauna is normally defined as organisms retained on 1 mm (European standard) or 0.5 mm sieves. It includes invertebrates over a wide size spectrum; from large crustaceans like Norway Lobster and large bivalves like the Ocean Quahog, to small worms like polychaetes and oligochaetes. Benthic macrofauna also forms a substantial part of marine biodiversity, with more than 500 species in the soft sediments of Kattegat and the Danish estuaries. Data Data contain abundance (number of individuals) and biomass (wet weight or dry weight) information. Information on sampling locations within the Danish national marine monitoring program (NOVA 2003) and download of data can be accessed through the MADS website.

Scope
Themes:
Biology > Benthos, Biology > Ecology - biodiversity
Keywords:
Marine/Coastal, Benthos, Long-term monitoring, Macrobenthos, Zoobenthos, ANE, Baltic, ANE, Belt Sea, ANE, Kattegat, ANE, Skagerrak

Geographical coverage
ANE, Baltic [Marine Regions]
ANE, Belt Sea [Marine Regions]
ANE, Kattegat [Marine Regions]
ANE, Skagerrak [Marine Regions]

Temporal coverage
From 1979 on [In Progress]

Contributors
University of Aarhus; National Environmental Research Institute (NERI)data creator
Josefson, Alf

Related datasets
Parent dataset:
MADS: The Danish national database for marine data
Following version:
Danish benthic marine monitoring data from ODAM, more

Dataset status: In Progress
Data type: Data
Data origin: Monitoring: field survey
Metadatarecord created: 2010-01-22
Information last updated: 2010-01-22
All data in the Integrated Marine Information System (IMIS) is subject to the VLIZ privacy policy