Fisheries-dependent and-Independent data used to model the distribution of diadromous fish at-sea

A database of 168 904 hauls covering the period from 1965 to 2019, from 46 surveys containing both fisheries -dependent (fishing vessels) and-independent data (scien-tific surveys) were collated from across the eastern Atlantic (Greater North Sea, Celtic Sea, Bay of Biscay and Iberian coast) and Metropolitan French Mediterranean waters. Data on diadromous fish (the European sturgeon (Acipenser stu-rio), allis shad (Alosa alosa), twait shad (Alosa fallax), Mediter-ranean twaite shad (Alosa agone), European eel ( Anguilla an-guilla), thinlip mullet (Chelon ramada), river lamprey (Lampe-tra fluviatilis), sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus), smelt (Os-merus eperlanus), European flounder (Platichthys flesus), At-lantic salmon (Salmo salar) and the sea trout (Salmo trutta)) presence-absence was extracted and cleaned. The gear type and gear category which caught these species, their spatial location, and the date of capture (year and month), were also cleaned and standardised. Very little is known about diadro-mous fish at-sea and modelling data-poor and poorly de-tectable species such as diadromous fish is challenging for species conservation. Furthermore, databases which contain both scientific surveys and fisheries-dependent data on data -poor species at the temporal and geographical scale of this database are uncommon. This data could therefore be used to improve knowledge of diadromous fish spatial and tem-poral trends, and modelling techniques for data-poor species.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )

Automated summary

This article presents a database of fish data in the eastern Atlantic region, covering the period from 1965 to 2019. The database includes 168,904 hauls from 46 surveys, consisting of both fisheries-dependent and-independent data. By cleaning and standardizing the data, it can contribute to improving conservation efforts and modeling techniques for data-poor diadromous fish species.