The Station Marine d'Endoume, Marseille: 150 years of natural history.

When marine natural sciences began to be the concern of most European scientists, in the middle of the 19th century, Marseille, in southern France, was no exception. The creation, ca. 150 years ago, of the first Zoology Laboratory of the Faculty of Sciences of Marseille took place in 1868. Under the leadership of Antoine-Fortuné Marion, it soon led to the creation of the Station Marine d'Endoume (SME) in 1889. Marion's pioneering work survived both world wars and was then taken to another dimension by Jean-Marie Pérès, head of the marine station from 1948 to 1983. This institution is still alive to date. We here inventoried all the taxa described by SME scientists (1870 to 2021) and arranged them in a public database. Three main periods of activity at the SME are described, as well as the focus made through time to different groups of taxa, selected ecosystems, or biogeographic areas. Through many examples, it was possible to document how these naturalistic, taxonomic descriptions contributed to a broader scientific knowledge within this period. Finally, we discussed trends in taxonomic and naturalistic research, based on the SME experience.

The well sorted fine sand community from the western Mediterranean Sea: A resistant and resilient marine habitat under diverse human pressures.

The Biocoenosis of Well Sorted Fine Sands (WSFS) (SFBC, Sables Fins Bien Calibrés in French) is a Mediterranean community very well delimited by bathymetry (2-25 m) and sedimentology (>90% of fine sand) occurring in zones with relatively strong hydrodynamics. In this study focused on sites located along the Algerian, French, Italian and Spanish coasts of the Western Basin of the Mediterranean Sea (WBMS) we aim to compare the structure, ecological status and diversity of the macrofauna of the WSFS and examine the effects of recent human pressures on the state of this shallow macrobenthic community. We assess the ecological status and functioning of these WSFS using three categories of benthic indices: a) five indices based on classification of species into ecological groups, AMBI, BO2A, BPOFA, IQ and IP, b) the ITI index based on classification of species in trophic groups, and c) the Shannon H' index, and the Biological Traits Analysis (BTA), which is an alternative method to relative taxon composition analysis and integrative indices. Cluster analyses show that each zone show a particular taxonomic richness and dominant species. The seven benthic indices reveal that the macrobenthos of the WSFS of the four coastal zones show good or high Quality Status, except for one location on the Algerian coast (the Djendjen site) in 1997. BTA highlights the presence of three groups of species: 1) typical characteristic species; 2) indicator species of enrichment of fine particles and organic matter, and 3) coarse sand species which are accessorily found on fine sand. Finally, the WSFS which are naturally subject to regular natural physical perturbations show a high resilience after human pressures but are very sensitive to changes in the input of organic matter.

Long-term (1998-2010) large-scale comparison of the ecological quality status of gulf of lions (NW Mediterranean) benthic habitats.

A comprehensive Mediterranean data set has been used to address 3 questions associated with the use of sensitivity/tolerance based biotic indices to infer the Ecological Quality status (EcoQs) of benthic habitats. Our results showed: (1) a significant effect of the reference database on derived sensitivity/tolerance measure (ES500.05) as well as associated Benthic Quality Index values and derived EcoQs; (2) a lack of correlation neither between BQI and AZTI Marine Biotic Index values nor between BQI and Multivariate-AZTI Marine Biotic Index values; (3) a lack of correlation between the values of the Benthic Habitat Quality Index (index derived from Sediment Profile Imagery) and those of either of the 3 tested biotic indices; and (4) a general agreement between the 3 tested biotic indices in describing the lack of global trend for the EcoQs of the Gulf of Lions despite the occurrence of significant changes in benthic macrofauna composition between 1998 and 2010.

Benthic indicators: From subjectivity to objectivity - Where is the line?

Over the last few years, the interest in using benthic indicators to assess marine environments has increased dramatically after a rather long period of relative stagnation, mostly due to the need to assess the status of coastal marine waters required by North American and European regulations. Numerous papers on this topic have been published in the domain of ecology, using a variety of different terms to refer to two categories of information: benthic species and the status of benthic communities. Nowadays, the abundant literature on these two categories makes it possible to comment on (1) the definition of the different terms used by benthic researchers, (2) the current increase of papers of rising complexity about benthic indicators, and (3) the subjectivity and objectivity involved in using benthic indicators. Faced with the increase in the number of methods, we recommend pragmatism and thus the transfer of simple methods to the research consultancies that are responsible for assessing benthic quality in numerous impact studies. Using certain procedures, such as the "sentinel species", the best professional judgement (BPJ) and taxonomic sufficiency (TS), should clearly be encouraged.