Benthic Genera Presence and Absence in the North Sea from 1990 to 2011

Distribution data for benthic genera in the North Sea, covering a 22-year timespan from 1990 to 2011. This data accompanies the manuscript “Capturing threshold responses of marine benthos along gradients of natural and anthropogenic change”, by E. Couce, G.H. Engelhard and M. Schratzberger, Journal of Applied Ecology, in press. It was obtained from re-analysis of OBIS benthic data supplemented with benthic survey data collected by Cefas in the same period, with the study region partitioned into a 0.25° x 0.25° regular grid.