Benthic Ecology of Carmarthen Bay (1998) dataset https://portal.medin.org.uk/portal/start.php?tpc=007_NRW_DS111141 The 1979 European Commission Directive (79/409 EEC) on the Conservation of Wild Birds requires Member States to notify the Commission of Special Protection Areas (SPAs) that are of particular importance to the conservation of wild birds. For some time there had been an increasing body of evidence that Carmarthen Bay was an important site in Britain for wintering common scoters (Melanitta nigra), one of the species protected by the ‘Birds Directive’. This project was stimulated by concern for the Carmarthen Bay macrofaunal communities, on which the wintering population of the Common scoter depend, following the Sea Empress oil spill of February 1996. This dataset contains the results of a project on the benthic ecology of Carmarthen Bay undertaken by Andrew Woolmer as part of his PhD to investigate the benthos and Scoter populations of Carmarthen Bay. The purpose of this data capture was to describe quantitatively the distribution of the macrofaunal communities in Carmarthen Bay to provide accurate baseline data, and to assess the distribution and density of potential prey species of Common scoter in an internationally important over- wintering site. The project comprised of four main areas of study: 1) Macrofaunal communities of Carmarthen Bay 2) Growth, abundance and spatial models of the Tellinacean bivalve Fabulina fibula 3) Macrofaunal response groups: a multivariate method for isolating indicator species along environmental gradients 4) Temporal variability, structural redundance, and the long term persistence of the Carmarthen Bay Tellina Community 20031031