ClimateFish: A database to track the abundance of selected coastal fish species as candidate indicators of climate change

The ClimateFish database collates abundance data of 15 fish species proposed as candidate indicators of climate change in the Mediterranean Sea. Data were collected according to a simplified visual census methodology (Garrabou et al. 2019) along standard transects of five minutes performed at a constant speed of 10m/min, corresponding approximately to an area of 50x5m. Four different depth layers were surveyed: 0-3m, 5-10 m, 11-20 m, 21-30 m. So far, the ClimateFish database includes fish counts collected along 3142 transects carried out in seven Mediterranean countries between 2009 and 2021, for a total number of 101'771 observed individuals belonging to the 15 fish species.