Early naturalists’ accounts are an important source of past information on marine species and communities. These documents, particularly abundant in the 19th century because of the ascendancy of the Linnaean system, provide the earlier available systematic description of species that can be used to set a historical baseline of marine biodiversity in the Adriatic Sea. The dataset includes information on fish species reported in 29 books written by 24 naturalists published between 1818 and 1936.

Italian annual landings (1953–2012) for the Northern and Central Adriatic Sea originated from official Italian statistics on the fishery, reported by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) from 1953 to 2004, and by the Institute for Economic Research in Fishery and Aquaculture (IREPA) from 2005 to 2012.

Between June 5th 1957 and July 4th 1958 a series of trawl-surveys were organised by the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries (IOF, Croatia) in the Croatian channels around the Hvar Island (central-eastern Adriatic).

The “Pipeta programme” (named after the Italian commercial trawler used; 300 HP; LOA = 26 m) was started in 1982 by the Laboratory of Marine Biology and Fisheries (LMBF, Italy) and the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries (IOF, Croatia). The expedition was a fishery-independent trawl-survey of the demersal communities using a bottom otter-trawl net (wing mesh-size: 55 mm; cod-end mesh-size: 22 mm; foot-rope length: 41 m; head-rope length: 32 m). The average towing speed was about 3.5 knots, and the sampling duration was 60 minutes for almost all hauls, with the exception of one haul (sampling duration of 15 minutes). Two successive trawl hauls were performed at each station, with the second towing frequently performed along the same distance but in the opposite direction. Data per stations are given as the mean value of two replicates. The survey was successively named GRUND programme and ended in 2007.

The “Pipeta programme” (named after the Italian commercial trawler used; 300 HP; LOA = 26 m) was started in 1982 by the Laboratory of Marine Biology and Fisheries (LMBF, Italy) and the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries (IOF, Croatia). The expedition was a fishery-independent trawl-survey of the demersal communities using a bottom otter-trawl net (wing mesh-size: 55 mm; cod-end mesh-size: 22 mm; foot-rope length: 41 m; head-rope length: 32 m). The survey was successively called GRUND programme and ended in 2007.

In November 1972, the Laboratory of Marine Biology and Fisheries of Fano (LMBF, Italy) and the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries (IOF, Croatia) organised a fishery-independent joint research in the Central Adriatic along the profile Fano-Dugi Otok (5 hauls), which was later extended to four profiles (17 hauls) in the Northern and Central Adriatic in October 1975. In September 1981, another survey performed three profiles in the Northern Adriatic Sea (9 hauls), replicating some of the stations sampled in 1975.

Historical landings from the Trieste (currently Italy) fish market for the period 1902-1968 (with some temporal gaps) were retrieved and entered in a digital format from the official statistical bulletin (paper format) of the Municipality of Trieste. At that time, Trieste fish market was one of the most important in the area together with Rijeka (currently Croatia) and Venice (Italy).

Historical landings from the Rijeka (currently Croatia) fish market for the period 1914-1932 were digitised from D’Ancona (1926). At the time, the Rijeka fish market was one of the most important in the area together with Trieste (currently Italy) and Venice (Italy). These fish markets collected almost all fish caught in the Northern Adriatic Sea at time.

The “expedition HVAR” (1948-1949), organised by the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries of Split (IOF, Croatia), was the first large-scale fishery-independent trawl-survey ever performed in the Adriatic Sea. The survey was conducted with the motorboat “Hvar” (250 HP; LOA = 25 m) in the territorial waters of the former Yugoslavia (currently territorial waters of the Republics of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro) and Albania, and in the international waters to approximately 20 nautical miles off the Italian coast.

The dataset was obtained from the original registers of the fish markets of Venice and Chioggia that were available on paper documents from 1945 to 1996, and in electronic spreadsheets from 1997. The data originally included information on landings from aquaculture and sea- and lagoon-fishery merged together.