title: Macrobenthic molluscs from a marine - lagoonal environmental transition in Lesvos Island (Greece).
abstract: BACKGROUND
  This paper describes an occurence dataset, also including numerical abundance and biomass data, pertaining to the macrobenthic molluscan assemblages from a marine - lagoonal environmental transition. The study system was the soft-substrate benthoscape of the area of the Kalloni solar saltworks (Lesvos Island, Greece). Specifically, the study area extended from the infralittoral zone of the inner Kalloni Gulf (marine habitat) to the bottoms of the first two evaporation ponds of the Kalloni solar saltworks (lagoonal habitat). Bottom sediment samples (3 replicates) were collected with a Van Veen grab sampler (0.1 m2) at four sampling sites, along a 1.5 km long line transect that spanned the marine - lagoonal environmental transition. A total of four surveys were carried out seasonally in 2004.  A total of 39,345 molluscan individuals were sorted out of the sediment samples and were identified to 71 species, belonging to the Gastropoda (36), Bivalvia (34) and Scaphopoda (1) classes. Numerical abundance and wet biomass (with shells) data are included in the dataset.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The dataset described in the present paper partially fills a significant gap in the scientific literature: Because ecological research of coastal lagoons has seldom explicitly considered the marine - lagoonal habitats interface, there are no openly accessible datasets pertaining to the particular structural component of the transitional waters benthoscapes of the Mediterranean Sea. Such datasets could prove valuable in the research of the structure and functioning of transitional waters benthoscapes. The present dataset is available as a supplementary file (Suppl. material 1) and can also be accessed at http://ipt.medobis.eu/resource?r=kalloni_saltworks_phd.
authors.affiliation: Department of Marine Sciences, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece.
authors.forename: Athanasios
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Evagelopoulos
authors.affiliation: Department of Marine Sciences, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece.
authors.forename: Drosos
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Koutsoubas
authors.affiliation: Department of Marine Sciences, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece; Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture, Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Heraklion, Greece.
authors.forename: Vasilis
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Gerovasileiou
authors.affiliation: Department of Marine Sciences, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece; Institute of Oceanography, Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Anavissos, Greece.
authors.forename: Nikolaos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Katsiaras
keywords: biodiversity; coastal lagoons; confinement gradient; environmental stress gradient; solar saltworks;  transitional waters