New Dataset Alert! Sherkin Island Marine Station Phytoplankton Records from the Southwest Coast of Ireland Series 1 has been published to Biodiversity Maps

Sherkin Island Marine Station was founded in 1975 by Matt Murphy and his late wife, Eileen and was run by Matt and his family until 2015, when project work ceased. Now Matt is retired and, with the help of his family, including his daughter Susan Murphy Wickens, is working towards an archive of data collected. Earlier this week, the first dataset ‘Sherkin Island Marine Station Phytoplankton Records from the Southwest Coast of Ireland. Series 1: Long-term data series from Roaringwater Bay/Long Island Bay and South of Sherkin Island, Co Cork 1980-2014’ from the Marine Station was published on Biodiversity Maps. You can find the dataset here.

The dataset includes 148,701 records across 343 species from the long-term monitoring of phytoplankton at 12 coastal water positions (stations) in south-west Ireland: Eight within Roaringwater Bay/Long Island Bay, and four from 1.5 km to 17.5 km offshore in open waters south of Sherkin Island, Co. Cork. Stations were visited from April to October each year, within a period from 1980-2014. Water samples were taken at set depths for each station and phytoplankton counts were recorded. The dataset includes standardized phytoplankton counts together with recorded location, date, water depth, water temperature, salinity, conductivity, Secchi disc estimate, tide height at time of sampling, sea conditions and weather conditions. Standard air temperature records from the manual weather station at Sherkin Island Marine Station covering the same time period, together with records from the automated weather station from 2004, offer comparisons with the marine records for climate-related studies (available from Met Éireann: The Irish Meteorological Service (online) c. 2023 [accessed 2023 July 17].

The National Biodiversity Data Centre has also published this dataset, with records spanning 35 years, on GBIF.org. It is possible view the dataset and download from GBIF.org under a CC BY-NC license. Additional detailed measurements including cell counts for each species at set depths per Station and per date are available in the downloadable version of the dataset. Supporting documentation relating to the dataset (pictured right) is available here. It is highly recommended to view to this documentation in conjunction with the dataset.