A selection of approximately 300 of the most common marine benthos species of The Netherlands is given in a database and in Gittenberger & Loon (2011), together with some of their most important characteristics and sensitivities to pressures. This study was commissioned by RWS Waterdienst to Gimaris, as a part of the design, calibration and intercalibration project for a redesigned marine benthos WFD metric (the BEQI-2) for RWS Waterdienst in 2011 (see Boon et al., 2011).

The most common marine benthos species were selected based on their relatively high abundances or biomasses in the national MWTL benthos dataset. In order to supplement this species selection, which is mostly focuses on endofauna, a selection of the most important epifauna species was made using a few other datasets.

For approx. 300 species, reference data were collected on the AMBI (AZTI Marine Biotic Index), AMBI sedimentation and fisheries (two newly designed indicators based on the AMBI), Infauna Trophic Index (ITI), r/K strategy and non-native species data. The reference data in de database are supported by approx. 500 literature references.

The resulting species database with reference information is available for Dutch and European benthos laboratories, on the condition that these laboratories will contribute a few new species records for this database or additions to this database on a yearly basis. In this way, we hope that this database will become a commonly used and expanding tool for the Dutch and European marine benthos assessments.

If you are interested in this database or have any questions, just let us know via macrozoobenthos@gimaris.com. Emails send to this emailaddress will arrive at GiMaRIS, responsible for the maintanance of the database, and forwarded to the RWS Waterdienst of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, i.e. the owner of the database. If you indicate that you are interested, we will send you the database, once a year an an email asking you whether you have species information to add to the database, and once a year an email supplying you with the updated database. A user guide to the database is added in chapter 6 of the accompanying report (Gittenberger & Loon, 2011). A list of contributors to the database will be added in the future.

- Request a copy of the database via this link

See Gittenberger, A. & W.M.G.M. van Loon, 2011. Common marine macrozoobenthos in The Netherlands, their characteristics and sensitivities to environmental pressures. Gimaris report 2011.08