Global Pelagic Dispersal Traits for Early-Life Stages of Marine Fishes

32,988 species-level records for 6,841 marine fish species, compiled from 3,201 references to address a mismatch between need and availability of larval dispersal data. The databases cover 35 key pelagic dispersal traits, including swimming speed and vertical position, and include 1,155 unpublished records and 313 newly collected records from fieldwork in the Maldives and Guadeloupe. Eliot RUIZ compiled the data, last updated in May 2026, to enable robust fitting of probability density functions for Lagrangian models and to forecast global warming impacts on dispersal.

Use Cases

• Parametrizing Lagrangian biophysical models based on compiled swimming speed and vertical position data.
• Fitting probability density functions for particle-level variability in dispersal models based on systematically reported descriptive statistics.
• Forecasting global warming impacts on larval dispersal based on digitized individual-level age-at-length/weight records from rearing experiments.
• Analyzing connectivity between demersal fish populations based on traits for delayed settlement (rafting or pelagic juveniles).

Strengths

• Compiled from 3,201 multidisciplinary references, indicating a broad literature review.
• Contains 32,988 species-level records for 6,841 marine fish species worldwide.
• Includes 1,155 unpublished records from other teams and 313 newly collected field records.
• Digitized 12,322 individual-level growth records from rearing experiments for temperature-dependent model fitting.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic or source bias inherent to the compilation from scattered literature.

Provenance

Source

figshare, author Eliot RUIZ

Collection Method

Systematic compilation from 3,201 references, including unpublished records and new fieldwork.

Time Range

Temporal coverage of the compiled literature is not specified.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-01 04:31:30

Geography

Global coverage of marine fish species, with specific fieldwork in the Maldives and Guadeloupe.