IMIS - Marine Research Groups

This product builds on the EMODnet Biology data product Presence/absence data of macrozoobenthos in the European Seas to derive estimates of temporal turnover in benthic communities on a spatial grid across European seas. This product only uses species-level records, and only uses sampling events where the full macrobenthic community was surveyed (i.e. where there are no 'NA' values in the presence/absence dataset for any species). Six time periods are considered, based on data availability: before 1990, 1990-1999, 2000-2004, 2005-2009, 2010-2014, and 2015 and after. A 1 degree grid is used to obtain reasonable numbers of repeat samples per grid cell. The code below could be adapted to set different time periods and/or a different grid resolution. This readme describes the product structure, including the workflow to generate the required derived datasets and the process for turning them into gridded maps of community turnover.