The Pélagiques Gascogne (PELGAS, Doray et al., 2000) integrated survey aims at assessing the biomass of small pelagic fish and monitoring and studying the dynamics and diversity of the Bay of Biscay pelagic ecosystem in springtime. PELGAS has been conducted within the EU Common Fisheries Policy Data Collection Framework and Ifremer’s Fisheries Information System. Details on survey protocols and data processing methodologies can be found in Doray et al., (2014, 2018). This dataset comprises the abundance (no. of individuals), biomass (metric tons), mean length (cm), mean weight (g) of marine organisms collected by midwater trawling to identify fish echoes detected during PELGAS surveys (2000-2018). All parameters have been raised to the trawl haul level. Trawl haul metadata and species reference list are also provided.

The bathymetric DEM of the atlantic facade with a resolution of 0.001° (~ 100 m) was prepared as part of the HOMONIM project. It encompasses part of the North Sea, the Channel and the Bay of Biscay. Offshore, this DTM extends beyond the slope to approximately 4800 m depth. The DEM is designed to be used in hydrodynamic models in order to produce high-precision forecasts for coastal water levels and sea conditions and therefore improve the pertinence of the Waves-Submersion monitoring programme. This product is available with the Lowest Astronomic Tide (LAT) or the Mean Sea Level (MSL) as a vertical datum.

The Pélagiques Gascogne (PELGAS, Doray et al., 2000) integrated survey aims at assessing the biomass of small pelagic fish and monitoring and studying the dynamics and diversity of the Bay of Biscay pelagic ecosystem in springtime. PELGAS has been conducted within the EU Common Fisheries Policy Data Collection Framework and Ifremer’s Fisheries Information System. The PELGAS survey model has allowed for the establishment of a long-term time-series of spatially-explicit data of the Bay of Biscay pelagic ecosystem since the year 2000. Main sampled components of the targeted ecosystem are: hydrology, phytoplankton, mesozooplankton, fish and megafauna (cetacean and seabirds). This dataset presents gridded maps of standard pelagic ecosystem parameters collected in the main sampled components during the PELGAS survey. Ecosystem parameters were mapped on a 15km x 15km grid by applying a block averaging procedure (Petitgas et al., 2009, 2014). The dataset also includes the ecologically meaningful survey dates proposed by Huret et al. (2017), mapped on the same grid. Details on survey protocols and data processing methodologies can be found in Doray et al., (2014, 2017a). This dataset was used in Authier et al., 2017; Doray et al., 2017b, 2017c, 2017a; Huret et al., 2017; Petitgas et al., 2017.

A consistent dataset of bottom trawl survey data spanning 47 years in the Bay of Biscay was assembled. The dataset includes data from the current EVHOE survey from 1987 to 2019 and two previous surveys carried out in 1973 and 1976. The recent EVHOE time-series from 1997 is also available from DATRAS (https://www.ices.dk/data/data-portals/Pages/DATRAS.aspx). The catch in numbers and weight (kg) per haul of all Rajiformes species caught in these surveys is provided. Haul information is provided for all hauls, including those with no catch of Rajiformes. Areas of the sampling strata of the survey and spatial polygones of these strata are provided in separate files.

These data are outputs of a spatio-temporal model inferring fish distribution. The maps are based on high-resolution catch data (VMS-logbook). They have a montly time resolution and a 0.05° spatial resolution. Four demersal species of the Bay of Biscay are available in the dataset: common sole (Solea solea), megrim (Lepidorhombus whiffiagonis), anglerfish (Lophius spp) and thornback ray (Raja clavata). Maps are provided for year 2008 to 2018 ; they were produced in the context of the MACCO project (https://www.macco.fr/en/accueil-english/), an Ifremer project that aims at proposing alternative management strategies for the mixed demersal fisheries of the Bay of Biscay.

This dataset comprises stomach contents from 2004 to 2022 for the five dominant small pelagic fish species, anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus), sardine (Sardina pilchardus), mackerel (Scomber scombrus), sprat (Sprattus, sprattus) and horse mackerel (Trachurus trachurus) on the french shelf of the Bay of Bisacy in spring. The dataset represents a unique long-term monitoring of stomach contents characterized with a low taxonomic resolution and semi-quantitative abundance quotation. The data were acquired on the PELGAS survey series. This integrated survey is run in each year in May since 2000, to monitor the Bay of Biscay pelagic ecosystem at springtime and assess the biomass of its small pelagic fish species. Survey protocols are detailed in Doray et al. 2018. During the survey, pelagic trawl hauls are undertaken to identify echotraces to species and to measure individual fish traits. All hauls are performed during day time. The fish stomachs were sampled from the haul catch. For a given species, twenty individuals were selected at random from the catch, their stomachs dissected and preserved. This was repeated at three hauls in each of the ten spatial strata defined to cover the entire Biscay shelf. Stomach sampling by species depended on the trawl haul catch and all species were not systematically sampled jointly at the same trawl haul. Also, stomach sampling intensity varied between species and years. The stomachs were preserved in formaline until 2018 and in ethanol since. The taxonomic analysis of stomach contents was performed in the laboratory under a binocular magnifyer by the company LAPHY. A simplified taxonomic resolution was used, which considered five icthtyoplankton groups, two copepod groups, euphausids or mysids, amphipods, two decapod groups, other crustacea, other zooplankton, phytoplankton and pulp. Taxon abundance was defined by a quotation : 0 (absence), 1 (presence : <10 individuals), 2 (abundant : between 10 and 100), 3 (very abundant : > 100). The dataset comprises trawl haul information, information on the quality of the stomach contents and abundance quotes for the list of plankton taxons.

The anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) and sardine (Sardina pilchardus) populations in the Bay of Biscay are jointly surveyed each year in May since 2000 and in September since 2003 by means of acoustic surveys. The integrated survey PELGAS (Doray et al., 2018) is run in May by France and covers the French shelf of the Bay of Biscay. Its objectives are to monitor the Bay of Biscay pelagic ecosystem in springtime and assess the biomass of its small pelagic fish species, including sardine and anchovy. Amongst many information on the ecosystem, the survey PELGAS provides knowledge on the adults of anchovy and sardine during their spawning in spring. The survey JUVENA (Boyra et al., 2013) is run in September by Spain. It has a larger spatial coverage than PELGAS, including part of the Spanish coast and open ocean outside the shelf because it targets juvenile anchovy. It also provides knowledge on sardine as well as other pelagic species. Both surveys are coordinated by the ICES Working Group on Acoustic and Egg Surveys for Small Pelagic Fish (WGACEGG), together with other pelagic surveys in ICES areas 7, 8 and 9. Survey protocoles are detailed in Doray et al. (2021). Briefly, fish backscatter data are recorded along the survey transect lines and pelagic trawl hauls are undertaken opportunistically to identify the echotraces to species and collect fish samples for biometric data. The trawl haul catches have provided the anchovy and sardine length data, from which the maps presented here are derived. At each trawl haul, the catch is sorted by species and weighted. A subsample by species is measured to estimate the species’ length distribution. The four maps presented here correspond to the average maps of anchovy and sardine length distributions in May and September, derived from the PELGAS and JUVENA trawl haul data series. The maps were obtained by kriging, following the procedure explained in Petitgas et al. (2011) for mapping functions instead of variables. For each species, the experimental length distribution at each haul was fitted by a linear combination of Legendre polynomials, the coefficients of which were co-kriged. The number of polynomials varied from 15 to 22 depending on the survey and species, with a higher number for sardine and in autumn. The length histogram at each grid node was then deduced from the mapped coefficients. When the length distribution at a given haul was estimated with less than 40 individual fish, the haul was not taken into account for mapping. This threshold defined presence and absence of the species in the haul data sets. The trawl hauls from 2000 to 2019 were pooled for the PELGAS series (1965 stations) and from 2003 to 2020 for JUVENA (852 stations). The mapping was performed on the same grid for both PELGAS and JUVENA and both species, and with similar moving kriging neighbourhoods. The grid has a mesh size of 0.25 x 0.25 decimal degree square. In addition to mapping the length distribution, presence/absence was mapped for each species by ordinary kriging on the same grid and with the same neighbourhoods as previously. The computations were performed in R (version 4.0.5) with the RGeostats package (version 13.0.1) freely available at http://rgeostats.free.fr. The map data files comprise for each species the following information: the geographical coordinates of the grid points, the probability of presence and the probability of each length class of width 0.5 cm ranging from 2.5 to 27 cm.

This dataset is composed of 702,111 zooplankton individuals, zooplankton pieces, non-living particles and imaging artefacts, ranging from 300 µm to 3.39 mm Equivalent Spherical Diameter, individually imaged and measured with the ZooCAM (Colas et al., 2018). The objects were sorted in 127 taxonomic and morphological groups. The imaged objects originate from samples collected on the Bay of Biscay continental shelf, in spring, from 2016 to 2019 during the PELGAS ecosystemic surveys (Doray et al., 2018). The samples were collected with a WP2 200 µm mesh size fitted with a Hydrobios (back-run stop) mechanical flowmeter, generally from 100 m depth to the surface, or 5 m above the sea floor (if bottom depth less than 100 m) in vertical hauls, at night. The samples were imaged on board, live, after collection and subsampling, and preserved in 4% buffered formaldehyde seawater. Each imaged object is geolocated, associated to a station, a cruise, a year and other metadata that enable the reconstruction of quantitative zooplankton communities for ecological studies (i.e. Grandrémy et al., 2023a). Each object is described by 52 morphological and grey level based features (8 bits encoding, 0 = black, 255 = white), including size, automatically extracted on each individual image by the ZooCAM software. Each object was taxonomically identified using the ZooCAM software and the web based application Ecotaxa with built-in, random forest and CNN based, semi-automatic sorting tools followed by expert validation or correction (Picheral et al., 2017). Images from 2016-2017 contain ROI bounding box limits, metadata at the bottom of each image, and non-homogenised background within and around the ROI bounding box; Images from 2018 contain non-homogenised background within the ROI bounding box only; images from 2019 have a completely homogeneous and thresholded background around the object.  The differences arose from successive ZooCAM software updates that do not modify the calculation of object’s features. This dataset is intended to be used for ecological studies as well as machine learning applied to plankton studies. The archive contains : - One tab separated file (PELGAS ZooCAM zooplankton dataset) containing all data and metadata associated to each imaged and identified object. Metadata and features are in columns (n =72) and objects are in rows (n = 702,111). - One comma separated file containing the name, type, definition and unit of each field (column) in the .tsv (dataset descriptor zoocam). - One comma separated file containing the taxonomic list of the dataset, with counts and nature of the content of the category, i.e. “T” for taxonomical category, and “M” for morphological category (taxonomy descriptor zoocam). - A individual_images directory containing images of each object, named according to the object id objid and sorted in subdirectories according to their taxonomic identification, across years and sampling stations. - A Map of the sampling station location over the 2016-2019 period.

This dataset is composed of 1,153,507 zooplankton individuals, zooplankton parts, non-living particles and imaging artefacts, ranging from 300 µm to 3.39 mm Equivalent Spherical Diameter, individually imaged and measured with the ZooScan (Gorsky et al., 2010). The objects were sorted in 127 taxonomic and morphological groups. The imaged objects originate from samples collected on the Bay of Biscay continental shelf, in spring, from 2004 to 2016 during the PELGAS ecosystemic surveys (Doray et al., 2018). The samples were collected with a WP2 200 µm mesh size fitted with a Hydrobios (back-run stop) mechanical flowmeter, generally from 100 m depth to the surface, or 5 m above the sea floor (if bottom depth less than 100 m) in vertical hauls, at night. From 2004 to 2006, vertical WP2 net tows were performed in the anchovy core distribution area in the southern Bay of Biscay and North of it until the Loire estuary only. Since 2009, WP2 sampling has been carried out at all PELGAS stations, up to the southern coast of Brittany. The samples were preserved in 4% buffered formaldehyde seawater solution directly after collection, until 2019-2020 where they were imaged with the ZooScan, in the lab, on land. Each imaged object is geolocated, associated to a station, a cruise, a year and other metadata that enable the reconstruction of quantitative zooplankton communities for ecological studies (i.e. Grandrémy et al., 2023a). Each object is described by 46 morphological and grey level based features (8 bits encoding, 0 = black, 255 = white), including size, automatically extracted on each individual image by the Zooprocess. Each object was taxonomically identified using the web based application Ecotaxa with built-in, random forest and CNN based, semi-automatic sorting tools followed by expert validation or correction (Picheral et al., 2017). This dataset is intended to be used for ecological studies as well as machine learning applied to plankton studies. The archive contains: - One tab separated file (PELGAS ZooScan zooplankton dataset) containing all data and metadata associated to each imaged and identified object. Metadata and features are in columns (n =71) and objects are in rows (n = 1,153,507). - One comma separated file containing the name, type, definition and unit of each field (column) in the .tsv (dataset_descriptor_zooscan). - One comma separated file containing the taxonomic list of the dataset, with counts and nature of the content of the category, i.e. “T” for taxonomical category, and “M” for morphological category (taxonomy_descriptor_zooscan). - A individual_images directory containing images of each imaged object sorted in subdirectories named according to objects’ identifications object_taxon appended to an Ecotaxa internal taxon numerical id classif_id (i.e. taxon__123456789) across years and sampling stations. Within subdirectories, each object is named after its unique internal Ecotaxa identifier, objid. - A Map of the sampling station location over the 2004-2016 period

The Coriolis Ocean Dataset for Reanalysis for the Ireland-Biscay-Iberia region (hereafter CORA-IBI) product is a regional dataset of in situ temperature and salinity measurements. The latest version of the product covers the period 1950-2014. The CORA-IBI observations comes from many different sources collected by Coriolis data centre in collaboration with the In Situ Thematic Centre of the Copernicus Marine Service (CMEMS INSTAC).  The observations integrated in the CORA-IBI product have been acquired both by autonomous platforms (Argo profilers, fixed moorings, gliders, drifters, sea mammals, fishery observing system from the RECOPESCA program), research or opportunity vessels ( CTDs, XBTs, ferrybox).  This CORA-IBI product has been controlled using an objective analysis (statistical tests) method and a visual quality control (QC). This QC procedure has been developed with the main objective to improve the quality of the dataset to the level required by the climate application and the physical ocean re-analysis activities. It provides T and S individual profiles on their original level with QC flags. The reference level of measurements is immersion (in meters) or pressure (in decibars). It is a subset on the IBI (Iberia-Bay-of-Biscay Ireland) of the CMEMS product referenced hereafter. The main new features of this regional product compared with previous global CORA products are the incorporation of coastal profiles from fishery observing system (RECOPESCA programme) in the Bay of Biscay and the English Channel as well as the use of an historical dataset collected by the Service hydrographique de la Marine (SHOM).