Belgium is one of the North Sea states, but only 67 km of its total borderline of 1,385 km is coastal, a mere 4.7 %! Most of this stretch is composed of sandy beaches with few artificial hard substrates, a seemingly monotonous ecological environment suffering from a very high economic and recreational pressure. The Belgian Continental Shelf is relatively small (2,017 km²) and the main part of this area is formed by the Vlaamse Banken, a homogeneous sandbank system, with an equally homogeneous ecosystem. Although marine Belgium seems to be small, it still accommodates a quite diverse molluscan fauna. The Taxonomic Information System for the Belgian coastal area (TISBE) lists 302 different molluscan species/subspecies. This figure is based on data from key publications dealing with the distribution of marine species on the Belgian Continental Shelf and adjacent areas, a.o. Backeljau (1986) listing 136 species. Despite this species richness, it is surprising to see the sometimes very low scientific interest in our local marine molluscan fauna, especially in recent years. As a consequence, publications dealing with this fauna have not been thoroughly tracked and documented in bibliographies or databases (apart from a few important attempts ). As part of a larger bibliographic effort undertaken by the VLIZ-library (compilation of the Belgian Marine Bibliography BMB, first volume to be published in 2005-2006), we used this ‘molluscan gap’ in the bibliographic record, as a test-case for our working procedures, at the same time producing a much needed information tool for malacologists, conchologists, ecologists and amateur shell-collectors. A lot of literature we found is written in other languages than English (mostly Dutch and French). As an incentive to an international audience, translations are added to all non-English references in this publication. |
