LifeWatch observatory data: phytoplankton annotated image library by FlowCam imaging for the Belgian part of the North Sea.

In the framework of the Lifewatch marine observatory a number of fixed stations in the Belgian Part of the North Sea (BPNS) are sampled for phytoplankton monitoring. Samples are processed using a VS-4 FlowCAM model at 4X magnification, size range imaged is 55-300µm. The identification of the image data is done with the use of a classifier and followed by a manual validation step. These dataset comprises the full annotated image dataset which can be sampled for training of convolutional neural networks.