Density data for Lake Erie benthic invertebrate assemblages from 1930 to 2019

Benthic invertebrates are important trophic links in food webs and useful bioindicators of environmental conditions, but long-term benthic organism abundance data across broad geographic areas are rare, and historic data sets are often not readily accessible. This data set for a companion paper by Karatayev et al. (2022) provides densities of benthic macroinvertebrates collected from 1930 to 2019 during surveys in Lake Erie, a Laurentian Great Lake. The surveys were funded by the governments of the United States and Canada to investigate the status and changes in benthic community. From the total of 21 lake- and basin-wide benthic surveys conducted in Lake Erie from 1929 to 2019, we were able to acquire data for 17 surveys, including species-level data for 10 surveys and data by higher taxonomic groups for 7 surveys. Our amassed Lake Erie dataset includes data from 11 surveys (including 5 with species-level data) conducted in the western basin in 1930–2019, 7 surveys (6 with species-lev..., Lake Erie (surface area 25,690 km2) is one of five Laurentian Great Lakes of North America centered at 42°15’N and 81°15’W. It is bounded on the north by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south, west, and east by the U.S.A. states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York (moving west to east). The Canadian and the U.S. water boundaries meet in the middle of the lake.
Benthic habitats where samples were collected ranged from depths 2 to 63.5 m. All benthic invertebrate data were collected during surveys conducted in the summer and fall months between 1930 and 2019. Historical basin-wide surveys in Lake Erie varied in sample design, number of stations sampled per year, sampling gear (Ekman, Petersen, Franklin-Anderson, Shipek, and Ponar grabs), the mesh size of the sieve used to wash sediments (180 – 760 µm), and the numbers of surveys per year (Karatayev et al., 2022, Table 1). The level of taxonomic identification and taxa reported also varied among surveys from reportin..., , **Density data for Lake Erie benthic invertebrate assemblages from 1930 to 2019**
This data set for a companion paper by Karatayev et al. (2022) provides densities of benthic macroinvertebrates collected from 1930 to 2019 during surveys in Lake Erie, a Laurentian Great Lake, funded by the governments of the United States and Canada to investigate the status and changes in benthic community. Of a total of 21 lake- and basin-wide benthic surveys conducted in Lake Erie from 1930 to 2019, we were able to acquire species-level data for 10 surveys; another 7 surveys only identified benthic organisms to higher taxonomic groups. These include data from 11 surveys conducted in the western basin of Lake Erie in 1930–2019, 7 surveys in the central basin, and 8 surveys in the eastern basin (1973–2019). This represents the longest dataset of benthic invertebrates available for the Great Lakes. Density data are provided for taxa in the Annelida, Arthropoda, Mollusca, Cnidaria, Nemertea, and Platyhelm...