BENthic Foraminifera quantitative database from surface sediments of the Eastern Pacific (BENFEP_v1)

The BENFEP_v1 database contains georeferenced quantitative data of benthic foraminifera species from the Eastern Pacific surface sediments collated from 50 published and unpublished datasets. We consider one data as quantitative when the species abundance in an assemblage is provided as number of individuals (counts), relative abundance (percent) or density (number of individuals per volume unit). The taxonomy of benthic foraminiferal species is harmonized using the World Foraminifera Database (Hayward et al., 2022, last accessed on 22-12-08). Census data are provided in their original form and including with coded metadata (e.g., sampling devices, interval, type of assemblage, size fraction) to facilitate data analysis using different software. BENFEP_v1 is presented in short and in long format. In BENFEP_v1_short, foraminiferal entities (valid species or species identified to genus level) are provided as columns whereas in BENFEP_v1_long, foraminiferal entities are indicated in a single column. The long format integrates the taxonomic information extracted from WoRMS as well as the original authors' species designations which are provided in the related manuscript (Diz et al., doi:10.5194/essd-2022-324). Explanations about column names and column codes for BENFEP_v1_short and BENFEP_v1_long can be found in the companion files.