MEDITS catch data: Bentho-demersal assemblages of the Gulf of Lion and eastern Corsica (North-western Mediterranean) from 2016 to present

The MEDiterranean International Trawl Survey (MEDITS) started in 1994 within the cooperation between several research Institutes from four Mediterranean Member States (France, Greece, Italy, Spain) of the European Union. Along the time, till to the advent of the European framework for the collection and management of fisheries data, new partners from Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, Malta and Cyprus joined the MEDITS project. On the French Mediterranean shelves specifically, MEDITS covers the Gulf of Lion and Eastern Corsica. The MEDITS project aims to have fishery resource abundance estimators that are comparable between different Mediterranean zones, based on the same standardized observation methods. These should allow the reproduction, under similar conditions, of abundance indices for the different species over time. Standardized observation protocols relating in particular to the location of sampling stations, the characteristics and methods of use of the fishing gear, biological observations, computer file formats, have thus been defined jointly between the various partner countries and are applied by all teams participating in the MEDITS programme. Thus five depth strata have been defined for all sectors: 10-50 m, 50-100 m, 100-200 m, 200-500 m and 500-800 m. The basic principle is that of a distribution of the stations in proportion to the surface of the strata, with random selection of the stations in each stratum. Biological observations are carried out according to the protocol described in the latest version of "Instruction manual MEDITS" (MEDITS handbook version 9, 2017). Here, the data produced during the French MEDITS over the Gulf of Lion (GSA 7) and the eastern coast of Corsica (GSA 8) is made available.