Dataset: Baseline for the Northeast Atlantic (58 – 70° N) intertidal Mytilus species complex (Mytilus spp.) 2021-2022

Aim: Mussels (Mytilus spp.) are abundant in the North Atlantic, sessile, and sensitive to environmental change, and suitable as sentinels of environment and climate change of costal ecosystems. We aimed to determine the baseline for the Northeast Atlantic (58 – 70° N) Mytilus species complex, and to show the present distribution to surveys conducted 60 years ago.  

Location: Northeast Atlantic

Methodology: Baseline was obtained by investigating a total of 509 stations in the intertidal zone, in four regions comprising the environmental gradient from head of fjord to coast, and distributed over the latitudinal gradient from 58 – 70° N.

Results: The baseline shows a range in continuous abundance of mussels from 12 to 36 %, patchy abundance from 26 to 57 % and no or very limited mussel abundance from 26 to 46 % between the four regions. The presence of mussels in the southeast and west region was visualized to previous surveys conducted 60 years ago. The data points to similar past and present presence of mussels in both regions, yet past major mussel fields in the inner section of region southeast was not detected in this study.

Main conclusions:

The baseline of Mytilus spp. in the Northeast Atlantic (58 – 70° N) is now available for future reference. The baseline, plotted to surveys conducted 60 years ago, points to awareness of the population situated in the southeast section of the investigated region. Continued monitoring and modelling are needed to clarify drivers of temporal and spatial variation in the mussel populations along the Northeastern Atlantic coast.