Abundance and biomass of macrobenthos in the Black Sea during Mare Nigrum cruise S-RO1

Dataset containing macrobenthos data for samples collected during April 2008 in the North-West Black Sea (between 44°46' - 43°45' N latitude and 30° 11' - 29°35' E longitude). Macrobenthos sampling was done in 4 stations using a 0.14 m**2 Van Veen grab. Washing of the sample through two sieves - 1 mm and 0.25 mm mesh size; the material retained by the two sieves was examined at the binocular microscope; all animals were extracted, using fine tweezers and the species or group of species were identified and counted (in order to determine the density of populations); the larger organisms were measured and weighed (structure and biomass); for smaller organisms, the average wet weights inscribed in standard tables were used to calculate the biomass. Taxonomic identification was done at the GeoEcoMar by A. Teaca and T. Begun using the relevant taxonomic literature (Key-book for the identification of the Black Sea and Sea of Azov Fauna, 1968 -1972, Kiev - in Russian, V 1-4; BACESCU, M.C., MÜLLER, G. I., GOMOIU, M.-T., 1971 and BACESCU, M.C., MÜLLER, G. I., GOMOIU, M.-T., 1971-Benthic ecological research to Black Sea. Comparative quantitative and qualitative analyse of pontic benthic fauna. Marine Ecology, 4, 1-357 (in Romanian).

Macrofauna biodiversity from ECO2 water-formation experiment

The injection of gas into sub-seabed aquifers may lead to the displacement of hypoxic and hypersaline fluids (reservoir formation water) major environmental risk. To investigate this risk, the impact of formation water release on the macrofaunal community in a mesocosm experiment at Solbergstrand was conducted. 20 boxcores were exposed to 4 treatments (high salinity, hypoxic, mixed and tidal) during two weeks. The abundance of macrofauna was quantified for each treatment and richness, eveness and biodiversity indices calculated. The data are reported in this dataset.