Macrobel: Long term trends in the macrobenthos of the Belgian Continental Shelf (EUROBIS)

Therefore it is very important to develop a sustainable management plan for the natural resources of the BCS. To obtain this goal, information and knowledge is required about - geographical distribution of the marine biological communities, - the structure of these communities, - their relationship with the physical and the chemical environment, - the natural ecological and genetic variability, and - the nature and the effect of the anthropogenic influences on these ecosystem components.

Macrobenthic organisms are good candidates for monitoring the short and long-term effects of natural and anthropogenic impacts on and within the marine environment because of their direct link with the sediment and with the processes that occur immediately above the sediments. SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE The specific aim of this website is to deliver an atlas with distribution maps of the macrobenthos of the Belgian Coastal Shelf (BCS) for the periods 1977-1983 and 1994-2000.

Besides biogeographic and taxonomy information, which is given for each taxon, descriptive details on morphology, biology, ecology, habitat preferences and illustrations are given for a limited number a taxa (see list below). Eventually, by continuing monitoring programmes, our knowledge of different effects of antropogenic activities on the macrobenthos will aid in the development of a sustainable management plan for the Belgian Coastal Shelf.

Size reference: 338 species; 771 stations; 21,041 distribution records [Source: The information provided in the summary was extracted from the MarBEF Data System at marbef.org/data/eurobis.php