Global Freshwater Fish Knowledge Shortfalls Across 18,821 Species

Global freshwater fish biodiversity knowledge gaps are quantified for 18,821 species across 3,364 drainage basins. The dataset includes analyses of Linnaean, Wallacean, and Darwinian shortfalls and a prioritization framework for future data collection. It was created by Liuyong Ding and last updated on 28 April 2026.

Use Cases

• Prioritizing regions for biodiversity data collection based on identified knowledge shortfalls.
• Analyzing global patterns of freshwater fish diversity and data deficiency.
• Modeling conservation strategies using the provided multi-objective prioritization framework.
• Studying the relationship between species body-size data and biogeographical units.

Strengths

• Covers 18,821 freshwater fish species, providing a global taxonomic scope.
• Analyzes data across 3,364 drainage basins, offering detailed geospatial units.
• Includes reproducible R scripts and processed data archived for long-term access.
• Distinguishes between measured and imputed body-size data, clarifying data provenance.

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 bias inherent to the aggregated sources.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Liuyong Ding.

Collection Method

Data acquisition, processing, analysis, and model fitting via R scripts; likely aggregates from multiple open biodiversity sources.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-28 10:37:56; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global, covering 3,364 drainage basins.