Abstract. In this paper we describe a 50-year (1965–2015) ecological database
containing data collected in the northern Adriatic Sea (NAS) at one of the 25
research parent sites belonging to the Italian Long Term Ecological Research
Network (LTER-Italy, http://www.lteritalia.it, last access: February 2020). LTER-Italy is a formal
member of the International (https://www.ilter.network, last access: February 2020) and
European (http://www.lter-europe.net/, last access: February 2020) LTER networks. The NAS
is undergoing a process, led by different research institutions and
projects, of establishing a marine ecological observatory, building
on the existing facilities, infrastructure, and long-term ecological data.
During this process, the implementation of open-access and open-science
principles has been started by creating an open-research life cycle that involves
sharing ideas and results (scientific papers), data (raw and processed),
metadata, methods, and software. The present data paper is framed within
this wider context. The database is composed of observations on abiotic
parameters and phytoplankton and zooplankton abundances, collected during 299 cruises
in different sampling stations, in the Gulf of Venice in particular. Here we
describe the sampling and analytical activities, the parameters, and
the structure of the database. The database is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3516717 (Acri et al., 2019), and it was also
uploaded in the DEIMS-SDR repository (Dynamic Ecological Information
Management System – Site and Dataset Registry, https://deims.org/), which is the official site and data registry for the
International LTER network.