Larval Fish Community Changes Over Three Decades in the NW Mediterranean

Nine ichthyoplankton surveys from the 1980s, 2000s, and 2010s document long-term changes in summer larval fish communities along the Catalan coast. The data likely contains records of species abundance and composition, linked to observed environmental trends like increasing sea surface temperature and decreasing chlorophyll-a. This dataset, authored by Vanesa Raya and shared under a CC-BY-4.0 license, provides a multi-decadal baseline for studying climate impacts on marine ecosystems.

Use Cases

• Modeling species distribution shifts based on observed temperature increases and the northward expansion of warm-water species.
• Analyzing correlations between larval fish abundance and environmental variables like sea surface temperature and chlorophyll-a concentration.
• Investigating long-term community composition changes by comparing species richness and presence across three distinct decades.
• Assessing the impact of declining river runoff and primary production on specific species, such as Engraulis encrasicolus.

Strengths

• Covers a long temporal span with surveys conducted in three distinct decades (1980s, 2000s, 2010s).
• Applies consistent sampling methodology across all nine surveys, enabling direct temporal comparisons.
• Links biological observations to specific environmental trends like warming and decreased chlorophyll-a.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale modeling.
• The dataset is very small (16.2 KB), indicating limited scope or summary-level data.

Provenance

Source

Vanesa Raya

Collection Method

Ichthyoplankton surveys carried out in June, July, and September.

Time Range

1980s, 2000s, 2010s

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-13 04:48:59; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Catalan coast, NW Mediterranean Sea