IMIS

The National Benthic Inventory (NBI) is a quantitative database on abundances of individual benthic species by sample and study region, along with other synoptically measured environmental variables. The NBI is a data source for the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) and provides additional source of data on marine-benthic invertebrate species from studies conducted throughout the United States. The NBI component provides a basis for fulfilling important data needs of customers, such as providing information on the incidence and patterns of occurrence of a particular species of interest, or on the overall composition and diversity of species assemblages within any particular region of interest. Other key objectives of the NBI component are: (1) to provide a source of information for assessing patterns in marine biodiversity; (2) to provide input data for evaluating biological responses to sediment-associated stressors, and for developing new diagnostic tools to enhance such analyses; and (3) to provide a basis for monitoring the incidence and patterns of invasive species in marine and coastal waters (taking advantage of the fact that such a comprehensive database includes species from most all known marine invertebrate phyla, and thus will be broadly representative). Samples were live-sieved in the field on 0.5mm wire mesh sieves and all material retained on the screen was preserved with 10% buffered formalin with Rose Bengal dye. In the laboratory these previously fixed samples were re-sieved and transferred to a 70%-ethanol solution. All benthic macro-infauna retained on the 0.5mm screen were identified to the lowest practical taxonomic level, usually species. The level of taxonomy varied depending upon the salinity of the habitat from which the samples were collected. Oligochaetes and chironomids from tidal fresh and oligohaline salinity zones were identified to species (or lowest possible taxon) whereas individuals of these groups from higher salinities (> 5 ppt) were not identified to the species level. Additionally, certain faunal groups were not identified to the species level due to inherent taxonomic difficulties associated with the group and the limited value to be gained relative to the effort required for the additional level of detail. These groups and the corresponding level of expected taxonomic classification are as follows: Phylum Porifera (Sponges); Phylum Ectoprocta (Bryozoans); Class Hydrozoa - Order (e.g., Hydroida, Actinulida); Class Hirudinea; Class Anthozoa - Order [e.g., Alcyonacea (soft corals), Gorgonacea (sea fans and whips), Pennnatulacea (sea pens), Actiniaria (sea anemones), Scleractinia, (stony corals), Ceriantharia]; Other Dipteran Families - Family (e.g., Ceratopogonidae, Chaoboridae). All benthic macroinfauna (> 0.5mm) were identified to the lowest practical taxonomic level, usually species. The taxonomic classification system described in this metadata covers the major taxonomic categories of the database from Kingdom down to the level of Order only. This does not represent the more detailed taxonomic information that is available in database (usually species).