Marine macrobenthic assemblages off Riccione beach (2020)

This dataset provides the abundance (ind. m-2) of marine macrobenthic invertebrate species at 20 random sampling points in a square area of about 400×400 m from 0.8 to 4.2 m depth, along a beach without bathing establishments at Riccione, an Emilia-Romagna coastal municipality (Fig. 9), manually sampled on June 23rd, 2020. Depth, sediment grain size, and organic matter at each point are also provided.

The dataset is provided in three formats:

- Microsoft Excel XLSX file, including 3 sheets (Dataset, Fields and units, Taxonomy)

- CSV files (UTF-8), 3 files corresponding to the 3 sheets of the Excel file

- ESRI Shapefile (UTF-8, geometry point, EPSG:4326 - WGS 84)

The dataset includes 20 records, one for each sampling point, and 137 fields (consistent with the other project macrobenthic datasets: Lido di Dante, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10592498, and Bevano, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10592458). The first 14 fields are described in Table 11. The subsequent fields concern the abundance of the identified taxa as individuals preserved in alcohol sorted and classified under microscope (ind. m-2 ± 20). All the dataset fields are described in the Excel sheet/CSV file “Fields and units”, while the taxonomic related information for each taxon is provided in the Excel sheet/CSV file “Taxonomy”. Information extracted from the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS; https://marinespecies.org/) is provided here (see details in Table 12). ESRI Shapefile provides users with direct upload in any Geographic Information System (GIS). Nevertheless, due to this file format limitations, dataset field names have been truncated and/or renamed to fit 10 characters.

Figure 9. Map of the study area showing the 20 sampling points (Basemap: Google satellite; Projection WGS84 / UTM 33N, EPSG:32633).

Table 11. First 14 fields in the dataset (NA=not available).

Field

Darwin Core term

Unit

Precision

Note

locationID

locationID

NA

NA

Sampling location identifier (ID) specific to the data set

samplingDate

eventDate

YYYY-MM-DD

NA

Conforms to ISO 8601-1:2019

samplingTime

eventTime

HH:MM

± 10 min

Central European Summer Time CEST (UTC+2) conforms to ISO 8601-1:2019

decimalLatitude

decimalLatitude

decimal degrees

± 0.00001

WGS84 (EPSG:4326) - WAAS/EGNOS enabled GPS position

decimalLongitude

decimalLongitude

decimal degrees

± 0.00001

WGS84 (EPSG:4326) - WAAS/EGNOS enabled GPS position

X_UTM33WGS84

NA

m

± 1

WGS 84 / UTM zone 33N (EPSG:32633) - WAAS/EGNOS enabled GPS position

Y_UTM33WGS84

NA

m

± 1

WGS 84 / UTM zone 33N (EPSG:32633) - WAAS/EGNOS enabled GPS position

Depth

maximumDepthInMeters

m

± 0.1

Mean Sea Level (MSL, Genova zero) - measured with echo sounder and corrected by the closer tide gauge (in the area MSL is about +0.40 MLLW)

SamplingGear

NA

NA

NA

Van Veen grab operated from boat or bailer manually operated by diver inside a cylindrical frame

SamplingArea

NA

m2

± 0.001

Sampler size

Mud

NA

% dry mass

± 0.1%

Sediment particles <63 µ wet sieved recovered on Whatman filter paper and then dried at 80°C for 24 hours before weighing at ± 0.00001 g

FineSand

NA

% dry mass

± 0.1%

Sediment particles 250-63 µ wet sieved recovered on Whatman filter paper and then dried at 80°C for 24 hours before weighing at ± 0.00001 g

MediumSand

NA

% dry mass

± 0.1%

Sediment particles >250 µ wet sieved recovered on Whatman filter paper and then dried at 80°C for 24 hours before weighing at ± 0.00001 g

OrganicMatter

NA

% dry mass

± 0.1%

Sediment organic matter content obtained by Loss of weight on Ignition (LOI%) at 450°C 8h and weighted at ± 0.00001 g

 Table 12. Provided taxonomic information.

Taxon

the name used in the dataset

AphiaID_accepted

unique identifier in WoRMS

ScientificName_accepted

the name accepted according WoRMS

Authority_accepted

the name of the scientist or scientists who first validly published the name

Kingdom

Taxonomic level

Phylum

Taxonomic level

Class

Taxonomic level

Order

Taxonomic level

Family

Taxonomic level

Genus

Taxonomic level

Subgenus

Taxonomic level

Species

Taxonomic level

Due to the serious problem of coastal erosion, various coastal protection techniques have been tested over time at this site, in the Riccione municipality, and various nourishment activities have been carried out. To date, the site has two types of anti-erosion structures: a sandbag barrier and two artificial concrete structures called WMesh.

A first sandbag barrier was built during a project dating back to 1983 which involved several locations along the Emilia-Romagna coast. The construction of this barrier, which followed a pioneering "first generation" design, involved the use of sandbags 1 meter high located parallel to the coast and at a depth of approximately 3 m. However, over time, this barrier proved to be not very resistant to the force of the waves and the activity of the mussels, resulting in movement and breakage of the bags. Thirteen years after its construction, in fact, the problem of coastal erosion once again became very evident along the coasts of Riccione. Therefore, in 1995 a second barrier was built (called "second generation"), similar to the first but with the addition of some improvements. This was built higher and closer to the shore line (at a distance of approximately 200 m), using larger sandbags. Furthermore, to increase its anti-erosive effectiveness, bags were added positioned perpendicular to the barrier in order to limit the transport, and therefore the loss, of the sediment due to the currents.

Here, sampling of the benthic fauna present on the seabed in June 2020 allowed the identification of 60 taxa. The most abundant species was the tanaid crustacean Apseudopsis mediterraneus (on average 5586 ind. m-2). Lentidium mediterraneum bivalves were also very abundant (958 ind. m-2). Also the Chamelea gallina clam, a bivalve of great commercial interest, was found to be quite abundant (389 ind. m-2).

Related Project: TAO (Tecnologie per il monitorAggio cOstiero) project, concerning innovation in shallow-water coastal monitoring (POR FESR 2014-2020 ASSE 1 AZIONE 1.2.2 PROGETTO CUP E31F18001030007; June 2019 - May 2021).