Global pelagic dispersal traits datasets for early-life stages of marine fishes - Scientific Data

A new Scientific Data resource compiles global “pelagic dispersal” traits for early-life stages of marine fishes, built to support consistent, species-level comparisons. Researchers searched widely—using automated extraction, bibliographic reviews, and targeted Google Scholar work—then standardized and validated extracted numeric traits and associated temperatures by independent location and period. Each record includes origin of individuals (or “Unknown”), relevant length type (SL, TL, NL, or FL), and source details, with processing done largely in R 4.5.0. Names were validated through WoRMS (04/2025), while non-actinopterygians and freshwater species were excluded. Pelagic adults were filtered out from juvenile datasets using GASPAR and FishBase.