Benthic foraminifera in maerl beds of the Ria de Vigo

Data Records

The data in this sampling event resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 13 records.

2 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Alvarez Losada A B, Diz P, Cezón K (2025). Benthic foraminifera in maerl beds of the Ria de Vigo. Version 2.0. Universidade de Vigo. Samplingevent dataset. https://doi.org/10.15470/3pla4x

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Universidade de Vigo. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: ad67aa4b-2222-4ab7-baf7-48d3d8a15b6d.  Universidade de Vigo publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Spain.

Keywords

Samplingevent; Observation; benthic foraminifera; Maerl beds; stained; unstained; fractions

Contacts

Geographic Coverage

Ría de Vigo, Galicia (NW Spain) Two stations were analysed with geographic coordinates: 42.2568 N and 8.851 W; 42.2492N and 8.8201W

Taxonomic Coverage

N/A

Temporal Coverage

Project Data

This dataset is part of a Bachelor's Thesis from the Marine Sciences Degree at the University of Vigo, carried out by Ana Belén Álvarez Losada during the 2024/2025 academic year.

The personnel involved in the project:

Sampling Methods

The two samples analyzed were collected using two different drags, a box corer for Master and a shipek for Maerl samples. Master sample was obtained from the first 5 cm of the sediment rendering a sample volume of 125 cm3. In the case of Maerl sample, the first 3 cm of the sediments were collected giving a sample volume of 75 cm3. Once on board, samples were stained with buffered 37% formaldehyde with Rose Bengal (1g/L) in order to distinguish between considered living (stained) foraminifera and dead (unstained) foraminifera. Samples were stored in a cool room until further processing in the laboratory.

Method step description:

1. Samples were wet sieved through a 63 micrometer sieved to wash out fine particles. After sieving, samples were dried and weighted. Then, dried samples were dry-sieved into different size fractions: 1000-500, 500-250, 250-125 and 125-63 micrometers. A representative split was obtained to get a workable fraction of the whole sample using a microsplitter. Benthic foraminifera from stained and unstained assemblages were picked from each size fraction, identified and counted under a binocular microscope. Later, foraminiferal samples were stored at Marine Geosciences Department of Marine Science Faculty of Universidade de Vigo. Taxonomic identifications were validated with WoRMS (https://www.marinespecies.org/foraminifera/, Hayward et al., 2025). All data were stored in a database. The event, occurrence and measurement data were accommodated to fulfil the Darwin Core Standard. We used the Darwin Core Archive Validator tool (http://tools.gbif.org/dwca-validator/) to verify whether the dataset adhered to Darwin Core specifications. The Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT v3.1.7) of the Spanish node of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) (https://ipt.gbif.es/) was used to both upload the Darwin Core Archive and complete the metadata. Information regarding size fraction and assemblage type is available from MeasurementOrFact extension.

Bibliographic Citations

1. Hayward, B.W.; Le Coze, F.; Vachard, D.; Gross, O. (2025). World Foraminifera Database. Accessed at https://www.marinespecies.org/foraminifera on 2025-06-26. doi:10.14284/305
2. Diz P, Alejo I, Pimentel F (2024). Benthic foraminifera from the Ría de Vigo and the adjacent continental shelf. Universidade de Vigo. Sampling event dataset https://doi.org/10.15470/4t7mks accessed via GBIF.org on 2025-07-08. doi:10.15470/4t7mks

Additional Metadata