Relative abundances of benthic foraminifera in response to total organic carbon in sediments: Data from European intertidal areas and transitional waters.

ABSTRACT

We gathered total organic carbon (%) and relative abundances of benthic foraminifera in intertidal areas and transitional waters from the English Channel/European Atlantic Coast (587 samples) and the Mediterranean Sea (301 samples) regions from published and unpublished datasets. This database allowed to calculate total organic carbon optimum and tolerance range of benthic foraminifera in order to assign them to ecological groups of sensitivity. Optima and tolerance range were obtained by mean of the weighted-averaging method. The data are related to the research article titled "Indicative value of benthic foraminifera for biomonitoring assignment to ecological groups of sensitivity to total organic carbon of species from European intertidal areas and transitional waters" [1].