IMIS

These assemblages make up an important part of two of the EC Habitats Directive Annex I habitats: i) ‘Reefs’ (1170) and ii) ‘Submerged or partly submerged sea caves’ (8830) containing deep aphotic enclaves. A variety of circalittoral faunal turfs have been observed on the Azores shelves but knowledge on their distribution and the assemblages they form is scarce. This dataset compiles circalittoral faunal turf occurrences from sublittoral surveys conducted across the Azores archipelago (NE Atlantic) between 2005 and 2018. Sampling concentrated on island shelf and margin settings and was conducted using various optical platforms: (i) two small remote operated vehicles (a VideoRay Explorer micro-ROV and a SeaBotix LBV300S-6 mini-ROV); (ii) two custom-made underwater drop-down video frames carrying Tritech MD4000, GoPro Hero3+ or GitUp Git 2 cameras. A literature-based record made with a manned submersible is included for the sake of completion. The compilation comprises 548 occurrences (200 presences and 348 absences) identified at depths ranging between 24 m and 307 m. "Acknowledgements: To the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology for grants and individual contracts awarded to Fernando Tempera (refs: SFRH/BD/12885/2003, SFRH/BPD/79801/2011) and P. Afonso (IF/01640/2015) and funding of Okeanos Strategic Program. To projects CoralFish (EC-FP7ENV/2007/1/213144), CORAZON (FCT/PTDC/MAR/72169/2006), PLATMAR (FCT/PTDC/GEO-GEO/0051/2014) and Mission Atlantic (EC H2020-LC-BG-08-2018) for funding surveys throughout the archipelago and work by F. Tempera and J.N. Gomes Pereira. To the Azores Regional Government for funding the projects MoniZec, BALA, MoniZec-ARP and MONICO via the Regional Foundation for Science & Technology (DRCT/FRCT) and the Regional Directorate for Maritime Affairs (DRAM). To the Azores Regional Government for funding a Estagiar-L grant awarded to A.L. Sinde-Mano. To the Oceano Azul Foundation and the Waitt Foundation for funding the Blue Azores 2018 expedition. To the University of St. Andrews (Scotland) and Richard Bates for providing the Tritech camera used in the 2005 survey. To Renato Martins (IMAR-DOP/UAz) for the mini-ROV SP operation and troubleshooting. To the crews of the vessels R/L Águas Vivas, R/V Arquipélago and Nossa Senhora dos Milagres for all the hard work at sea. To Ricardo Serrão Santos and Frederico Cardigos for their general support and organisation of the early BANCOS expeditions promoted by IMAR/DOP-UAç."