b6e004be1339d54cd648f850ccaa1036 English dataset Angus Atkinson Plymouth Marine Laboratory Plankton Ecologist aat@pml.ac.uk pointOfContact Head of Science Marine Ecology and Biodiversity Plymouth Marine Laboratory dassh.enquiries@mba.ac.uk pointOfContact Andrea McEvoy Plymouth Marine Laboratory ajmc@pml.ac.uk pointOfContact 2024-11-29 MEDIN Discovery metadata standard 2.3.8 urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326 The Western Channel Observatory: a century of oceanographic, chemical and biological data compiled from pelagic and benthic habitats in the Western English Channel 1903 - 2022 2023-04-13 publication 2023-03-01 creation 2023-03-01 revision DASSHDT00000522 The Western Channel Observatory (WCO) comprises a series of pelagic, benthic and atmospheric sampling sites within 40 km of Plymouth UK, which have been sampled by the Plymouth Institutes on a regular basis since 1903. This longevity of recording and the high frequency of observations provide a unique combination of attributes, for example temperature data began to be collected in 1903 and the reference station L4 has been sampled on a weekly basis since 1988 where nearly 400 planktonic taxa have been enumerated. Some of these data are publicly available, but use of the WCO data is hampered by different levels of data availability and formatting. This dataset integrates average monthly values of some of the key pelagic and benthic measurements for the inshore site L4 (~54 m water depth), the offshore site E1 (~75 m depth) and L5. In summary, the data include: temperature (from 1903); macronutrients (from 1934); dissolved inorganic carbon and total alkalinity (from 2008); methane and nitrous oxide (from 2011); chlorophyll a (from 1992); pigments determined by HPLC (from 1999); pico and nanoplankton groups from flow cytometry (8 functional groups from 2007); phytoplankton (6 functional groups from 1992); FlowCam (6 groups from 2012), Noctiluca (from 1997); zooplankton (8 groups from 1988); Calanus helgolandicus egg production rates (from 1992); fish larvae from Young fish trawl survey (4 groups from 1924); benthic macrofauna (4 groups from 2008); demersal fish (19 families from 2008); blue shark, Prionace glauca (from 1958); 16s alpha diversity for sediment and water column (from 2012). These data have varying coverage in time and depth resolution. The metadata provides pointers to the source data and other related WCO data sets and outputs not compiled here. We hope that making the data fully accessible, and including units of both abundance and biomass, will stimulate a variety of uptakes. These may include uses as an educational resource for projects, for models and budgets or for analysis of seasonality and long-term change in a coupled benthic-pelagic system and for supporting UK and NE Atlantic policy and management. Angus Atkinson Plymouth Marine Laboratory aat@pml.ac.uk originator Andrea McEvoy Plymouth Marine Laboratory ajmc@pml.ac.uk originator Data Archive for Seabed Species and Habitats (DASSH) Data Manager 01752 633102 01752 633291 Marine Biological Association of the UK, The Laboratory, Citadel Hill Plymouth PL1 2PB dassh.enquiries@mba.ac.uk custodian asNeeded Delimited Documents Marine Environmental Data and Information Network NDGO0005 Habitats and biotopes Oceanographic geographical features Species distribution GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0 2008-01-06 revision Phytoplankton taxonomic abundance in water bodies Date and time Zoobenthos taxonomy-related wet weight biomass per unit area of the bed Biodiversity indices Phytoplankton taxonomic biomass in water bodies Fish biomass in water bodies Microzooplankton taxonomic abundance in water bodies Zooplankton taxonomy-related abundance per unit volume of the water column Zoobenthos taxonomic abundance Zooplankton taxonomy-related biomass expressed as carbon per unit volume of the water column Ammonium and ammonia concentration parameters in water bodies Nitrite concentration parameters in the water column Phosphate concentration parameters in the water column Fish taxonomy-related counts Silicate concentration parameters in the water column Molecular biology parameters Chlorophyll pigment concentrations in water bodies Temperature of the water column Fishing effort Flow cytometry parameters in water bodies SeaDataNet P021 parameter discovery vocabulary 2009-11-16 revision climate GEMET 2011-07-06 creation Open Access; Open Government Licence otherRestrictions Open Access English biota oceans biota Charting Progress 2 Sea Areas 2009-06-18 creation Western Channel and Celtic Sea ICES Rectangles 2009-05-01 creation 29E5 SeaDataNet vertical extent keywords 2010-01-01 revision epipelagic water column -4.4130 -3.9955 49.9407 50.3561 1903-02-02 2022-08-31 https://www.westernchannelobservatory.org.uk/data.php Data Archive for Seabed Species and Habitats (DASSH) Data Manager 01752 633102 01752 633291 Marine Biological Association of the UK, The Laboratory, Citadel Hill Plymouth PL1 2PB dassh.enquiries@mba.ac.uk distributor Head of Science Marine Ecology and Biodiversity Plymouth Marine Laboratory dassh.enquiries@mba.ac.uk distributor Andrea McEvoy Plymouth Marine Laboratory Plankton Ecologist ajmc@pml.ac.uk distributor http://doi.org/10.17031/645110fb81749 DOI URL A link to the web service or dataset http://www.dassh.ac.uk/ DASSH website A link to the general host site dataset This dataset integrates average monthly values of some of the key pelagic and benthic measurements for the inshore site L4 (~54 m water depth), the offshore site E1 (~75 m depth) and L5. In summary, the data include: temperature (from 1903); macronutrients (from 1934); dissolved inorganic carbon and total alkalinity (from 2008); methane and nitrous oxide (from 2011); chlorophyll a (from 1992); pigments determined by HPLC (from 1999); pico and nanoplankton groups from flow cytometry (8 functional groups from 2007); phytoplankton (6 functional groups from 1992); FlowCam (6 groups from 2012), Noctiluca (from 1997); zooplankton (8 groups from 1988); Calanus helgolandicus egg production rates (from 1992); fish larvae from Young fish trawl survey (4 groups from 1924); benthic macrofauna (4 groups from 2008); demersal fish (19 families from 2008); blue shark, Prionace glauca (from 1958); 16s alpha diversity for sediment and water column (from 2012). These data have varying coverage in time and depth resolution. Downloadable files include two Word metadata files containing detailed information on sampling and analysis method for each data type, data coverage and the availability of the source data. Authors/contributors for this data from Plymouth Marine Laboratory:Andrea McEvoy, Angus Atkinson, Ruth Airs, Ian Brown, Elaine Fileman, Helen Findlay, Louise McNeill, Tim Smyth, Paul Somerfield, Karen Tait, Glen Tarran, Simon Thomas, Claire Widdicombe, Malcolm Woodward, Amanda Beesley, James Fishwick, Hannah Haines, Carolyn Harris, Roger Harris, Penelope Lindeque, Thomas Mesher, Joana Nunes, Frances Perry, Andrew Rees, Stephen Widdicombe. Authors/contributors from the Marine Biological Association: Rachel Brittain, Clare Ostle, Dave Conway, Pierre Helaouet , David Johns, Dave Sims.