On inquiry I found out that some of the MacroBen data is available through EurOBIS, which I hadn't tried before (since I'm a long way away from the Med & North Sea, etc). It has a nice GIS-layers mapping facility and full downloading facility for the map data. There is a restriction in that it only works in MS internet explorer, and requires a plug-in SVG viewer from Adobe. Heaps of polychaete data though if you are interested in a particular species or in the area generally. Overall 6,800,000 distribution records; 15,000 species.
http://www.marbef.org/data/eurobissearch.phphttp://www.marbef.org/data/eurobisproviders.php
Geoff
>>> On 9/05/2009 at 7:29 p.m., "Geoff Read" <g.read from niwa.co.nz> wrote:
> Gidday,
>> One for the ecologists. I know nothing much about this European project but
> some on the list will. There are also some chemosynthetic environment papers
> in the issue. The database MacroBen is apparently only accessible by
> participant institutes.
>>http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v382/>> Open access to theme papers.
>> Introductory:
> Somerfield, P. J.; Arvanitidis, C. ; Vanden Berghe, E. 2009: MarBEF,
> databases, and the legacy of John Gray. Marine Ecology Progress Series 382:
> 221-224.
>>http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v382/p221-224/
--
Geoff Read <g.read from niwa.co.nz>
http://www.annelida.net/http://www.niwa.co.nz/about-niwa
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