Marked changes in diatom and dinoflagellate biomass, composition and seasonality in the Belgian Part of the North Sea between the 1970s and 2000s.

In the last decades, the North Sea has undergone intense environmental changes which have led to regime shifts that affected all trophic levels. Since the 1970s, both increases and decreases in phytoplankton biomass and production have been reported from different parts of the North Sea. Such conflicting observations may be partly caused by methodological differences, but also reflect regional differences related to bathymetry, hydrodynamics, climate, riverine and Atlantic influence.

Marine phytoplankton community composition data from the Belgian part of the North Sea, 1968-2010.

The Belgian Phytoplankton Database (BPD) is a comprehensive data collection comprising quantitative phytoplankton cell counts from multiple research projects conducted since 1968. The collection is focused on the Belgian part of the North Sea, but also includes data from the French and the Dutch part of the North Sea. The database includes almost 300 unique sampling locations and more than 3,000 sampling events resulting in more than 86,000 phytoplankton cell count records.