Report of the Study Group on North Sea Benthos Project 2000 (SGNSBP)

Progress of the ICES Study Group on the North Sea Benthos Project (NSBP) 2000 was achieved mainly by correspondence, following its final annual meeting at NIOZ, Texel in April 2006. However, an inter-sessional workshop was also held at VLIZ, Ostende, in November 2006 in order to promote progress in the reporting of products arising from the analyses and interpretation of the data.

The Study Group has concentrated on the production of an ICES Co-operative Research Report (CRR) and associated peer-reviewed publications. We have agreed a timetable with ICES for finalising the CRR text, in order for it to be published prior to the 2007 ICES Annual Science Conference, where a Theme Session on the ‘Structure and dynamics of the benthos in ICES waters’ is being held. This will include several papers on the outcome of the NSBP 2000.

Presently (April 2007), the Study Group has completed the majority of CRR chapters and is also finalising a policy for future access to the NSBP 2000 database with the data contributors. The support of VLIZ (Belgium) for database development and maintenance proved to be invaluable to the Study Group, and this support will continue. We are also finalising guidelines on authorship and acknowledgements of NSBP products by future users, which will be deposited on the website.

The work of the Study Group will be completed on publication of the CRR and the presentation of outcomes at the 2007 ICES Annual Science Conference. It is recommended that the initial planning of future sea-wide synoptic surveys of the benthos under ICES auspices (which the Study Group supports) should revert to the ICES Benthos Ecology Working Group.