seanoe:102259 CORDIER Céline IFREMER, Centre de Bretagne, ZI de la pointe du Diable, CS 10070, 29280 Plouzané, France 2025-02-19 ISO 19115:2003/19139 1.0 A broad-scale long-term dataset of Sabellaria spinulosa distribution and abundance 2024-09-27 2025-02-19 Cordier Céline, Firth Louise B., Dubois Stanislas, Board Callum, Bocher Enora, Cox Caitlin, Cox Rebecca, Ducker James, Gruet Yves, Kerckhof Francis, Lovatt Chloe, Segeat Benjamin, Curd Amelia (2024). A broad-scale long-term dataset of Sabellaria spinulosa distribution and abundance. SEANOE. https://doi.org/10.17882/102259 Numerous reef-forming species have declined dramatically over the last century. Many of these declines have been insufficiently documented due to anecdotal or hard-to-access information. The Ross worm Sabellaria spinulosa (L.) is a tube-building polychaete that can form large mostly subtidal reefs, providing important ecosystem services such as coastal protection and habitat provision. It ranges from Scotland to Morocco and into the Mediterranean as far as the Adriatic, yet little is known about its distribution outside of the North & Wadden Seas, where it is protected under the OSPAR & HELCOM regional sea conventions respectively. As a result, online marine biodiversity information systems currently contain haphazardly distributed records of S. spinulosa. One of the objectives of the REEHAB project (http://www.honeycombworms.org) was to combine historical records with contemporary data to document changes in the distribution and abundance of the two Sabellaria species found in Europe, S. alveolata and S. spinulosa. Here we publish the result of the curation of 555 S. spinulosa sources, gathered from literature, targeted surveys, local conservation reports, museum specimens, personal communications by authors  their research teams, national biodiversity information systems (i.e. the UK National Biodiversity Network (NBN), www.nbn.org.uk) and validated citizen science observations (i.e. https://www.inaturalist.org). 56% of these records were not previously referenced in any online information system. Additionally, historic samples from Gustave Gilson were scanned for S. spinulosa information and manually entered.   The original taxonomic identification of the 40,261 S. spinulosa records has been kept. Some identification errors may however be present, particularly in the English Channel and Mediterranean where intertidal and shallow subtidal records can be mistaken for Sabellaria alveolata. A further 229 observations (16 sources) are recorded as ‘Sabellaria spp.’ as the available information did not provide an identification down to species level. Many sources reported abundances based on the semi-quantitative SACFOR scale whilst others simply noted its presence, and others still verified both its absence and presence. The result is a curated and comprehensive dataset spanning over two centuries on the past and present global distribution and abundance of S. spinulosa. Sabellaria spinulosa records projected onto a 50km grid. When SACFOR scale abundance scores were given to occurrence records, the highest abundance value per grid cell was retained. The authors wish to thank Yves Samyn, curator of the Recent Invertebrates (non-insects) Collection of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, who made the data of the Gilson collection available to us. Morgane Le Gall from the Bibliothèque La Perouse is thanked for her help in tracking down historical records. This dataset has benefited from the participation of dozens of volunteers in citizen science projects (i.e. The Shore Thing, iNaturalist, the REEHAB project) and environmental NGOs (i.e. Bretagne Vivante, Estran22). Their contribution is gratefully acknowledged. CORDIER Céline IFREMER, Centre de Bretagne, ZI de la pointe du Diable, CS 10070, 29280 Plouzané, France FIRTH Louise B. University of Plymouth, School of Biological and Marine Sciences, Drake Circus, PL4 8AA, Plymouth, UK DUBOIS Stanislas IFREMER, Centre de Bretagne, ZI de la pointe du Diable, CS 10070, 29280 Plouzané, France BOARD Callum University of Plymouth, School of Biological and Marine Sciences, Drake Circus, PL4 8AA, Plymouth, UK BOCHER Enora University of Plymouth, School of Biological and Marine Sciences, Drake Circus, PL4 8AA, Plymouth, UK COX Caitlin University of Plymouth, School of Biological and Marine Sciences, Drake Circus, PL4 8AA, Plymouth, UK COX Rebecca University of Plymouth, School of Biological and Marine Sciences, Drake Circus, PL4 8AA, Plymouth, UK DUCKER James University of Plymouth, School of Biological and Marine Sciences, Drake Circus, PL4 8AA, Plymouth, UK GRUET Yves University of Nantes, 58 rue Stendhal, 44300 Nantes, France KERCKHOF Francis Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Operational Directorate Natural Environment, Aquatic and Terrestrial Ecology, Marine Ecology and Management, 3de en 23ste Linieregimentsplein, 8400 Oostende, Belgium LOVATT Chloe University of Plymouth, School of Biological and Marine Sciences, Drake Circus, PL4 8AA, Plymouth, UK SEGEAT Benjamin IFREMER, Centre de Bretagne, ZI de la pointe du Diable, CS 10070, 29280 Plouzané, France CURD Amelia IFREMER, Centre de Bretagne, ZI de la pointe du Diable, CS 10070, 29280 Plouzané, France SEANOE https://www.seanoe.org/data/00911/102259/illustration.gif Intertidal Sabellaria spinulosa hummocks on the shore of Equihen, Pas-de-Calais, France, taken in 2019 biogeography temperate reef Sabellaria spinulosa ross worm distribution OSPAR Biological oceanography Benthic habitats Invertebrates ODATIS aggregation parameters and Essential Variable names 2025-07-29 geonetwork.thesaurus.external.theme.NVS.OD1 Biological oceanography SeaDataNet Parameter Disciplines 2025-07-29 geonetwork.thesaurus.external.parameter.NVS.P08 Aggregate data Type de jeux de donnée ODATIS 2024-10-15 geonetwork.thesaurus.local.theme.type_jeux_donnee CC-BY-NC (Creative Commons - Attribution, No commercial usage) Data are published without any warranty, express or implied. The user assumes all risk arising from his/her use of data. Data are intended to be research-quality and include estimates of data quality and accuracy, but it is possible that these estimates or the data themselves contain errors. It is the sole responsibility of the user to assess if the data are appropriate for his/her use, and to interpret the data, data quality, and data accuracy accordingly. The authors welcome users to ask questions and report problems. oceans -18.0 36.0 17.0 70.0 1778 2023 CSV PDF https://www.seanoe.org/data/00911/102259/data/113572.csv WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-link--download Quality controlled data dataset - 16 MB https://www.seanoe.org/data/00911/102259/data/113573.pdf WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-link--download metadata - 416 KB https://doi.org/10.17882/102259 WWW:LINK-1.0-http--metadata-URL DOI of the product https://www.seanoe.org/data/00911/102259/ rel-canonical Seanoe