Summer Larval Fish Community Changes Over Three Decades in the NW Mediterranean

Nine ichthyoplankton surveys from the 1980s, 2000s, and 2010s along the Catalan coast track changes in larval fish abundance and composition. The dataset documents an increase in sea surface temperature and a decrease in surface chlorophyll-a over the study period. It was created by Vanesa Raya and last updated on 2026-05-13.

Use Cases

• Modeling species distribution shifts based on sea surface temperature trends mentioned in the description
• Analyzing community composition changes in relation to primary production (chlorophyll-a) declines
• Tracking the northward expansion of warm-water species like Thalassoma pavo and Caranx rhonchus
• Investigating the population dynamics of species like Engraulis encrasicolus in relation to environmental and anthropogenic pressures

Strengths

• Data spans three decades (1980s, 2000s, 2010s), providing a long-term perspective
• Surveys cover the same area and apply the same sampling methodology across all nine surveys
• License is CC-BY-4.0, allowing for broad reuse

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• The dataset is small (701.9 KB), indicating limited scope

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Ichthyoplankton surveys conducted in June, July, and September

Time Range

1980s, 2000s, 2010s

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-13 04:49:07; freshness should be verified

Geography

Catalan coast, NW Mediterranean