NOURMED beam trawl survey catch data : Coastal benthic assemblages of the Gulf of Lion (North-western Mediterranean) in 2018-2019

As part of the monitoring program of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), the monitoring of demersal fish and cephalopods in coastal soft sediments has been deemed a priority. In order to do this, annual fish surveys have been deployed to cover coastal nurseries, which constitute essential habitats for many marine species. The characterization of the ecological state of these populations and the study of the functionality of nursery habitats is required for the calculation of the indicators of Good Ecological Status (Delaunay et al., 2019) and is essential for the implementation of ecosystem management measures guaranteeing sustainable uses. On the French Mediterranean coast, the NOURMED survey exploring the feasibility of such monitoring was successfully carried out in the Gulf of Lion in September 2018 and 2019 (Vaz et al., 2019, Vaz et al. 2020). They provide detailed quantitative data on benthic and demersal species composition in coastal nursery grounds of the Gulf of Lion.