DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17916222
title: Datasets for Fish and zooplankton co-responses to environmental gradients under different climate change scenarios

description: Data sets for the results shown in Fish and zooplankton co-responses to environmental gradients under different climate change scenarios.

FishPA_156lakes.xlsxThis file contains presence–absence data for 67 fish species across 156 lakes sampled through various monitoring programs of the Ministère de l’Environnement, de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques, de la Faune et des Parcs (MELCCFP). The dataset includes species occurrences from standardized monitoring surveys (described in Service de la faune aquatique 2011), bycatch from these surveys, observations from non-standardized surveys, and sport fishing records. Because the sampling protocols were not designed to verify true absences, zeros in the dataset should be interpreted with caution. MELCCFP kindly requests to be informed of any future uses of this dataset in order to better track and guide its use in research contexts (dpefa@environnement.gouv.qc.ca).

FishTraits.xlsxThis file contains functional and physiological traits for the 67 fish species, including trophic level, classified into primary consumers, secondary consumers, and top predators (FishBase; Froese and Pauly 2025), maximum body length, oral gape position (MoBd ratio; categorized into bottom feeders, generalists, or surface feeders) from the FishMorph database (Su et al. 2021), and critical thermal maxima (CTmax) from Comte and Olden (2017). Missing CTmax values were imputed using family means.

ZooPA_156lakes.xlsxThis file contains presence–absence data for 53 zooplankton species across the same 156 lakes. Samples originate from the MELCCFP fish monitoring program (n = 120), the MELCCFP Biodiversity Monitoring Network (BdQc; n = 23), and the NSERC Canadian LakePulse Network (Huot et al. 2019; n = 13). Zooplankton were collected at each lake’s deepest point during the summer stratification period.

ZooTraits.xlsxThis file includes zooplankton functional traits, specifically mean body length, feeding type, habitat, and trophic group, following the trait classifications of Barnett et al. (2007) and Paquette et al. (2021).

Env_156Lakes.xlsxThis file contains environmental variables and metadata for the 156 lakes sampled by the MELCCFP monitoring programs. Morphometric characteristics and watershed population density were retrieved from the LakeAtlas database (v1.0; Lehner et al. 2022). Water quality variables (physical and chemical properties) were measured in situ or analyzed following MELCCFP protocols (Service de la faune aquatique 2011). Baseline climate variables were obtained from WorldClim version 2.1. 

FutureClim_156lakes.xlsxThis file contains projected climate variables for the 2081–2100 period under three shared socio-economic pathways (SSP1-2.6, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5). Climate projections were extracted from WorldClim version 2.1 and averaged across six global climate models: MIROC6, MPI, IPSL, MRI, ACCESS, and UKESM.

 

REFERENCES

Barnett, A., K. Finlay, and B. Beisner. 2007. Functional diversity of crustacean zooplankton communities: Towards a trait-based classification. Freshw. Biol. 52: 796–813. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2427.2007.01733.x

Comte, L., and J. D. Olden. 2017. Climatic vulnerability of the world’s freshwater and marine fishes. Nat. Clim. Chang. 7: 718–722. doi:https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3382

Froese, R., and D. Pauly. 2025. FishBase. Available at: www.fishbase.org.

Lehner, B., M. L. Messager, M. C. Korver, and S. Linke. 2022. Global hydro-environmental lake characteristics at high spatial resolution. Sci. Data 9: 1–19. doi:10.1038/s41597-022-01425-z

Paquette, C., I. Gregory-Eaves, B. E. Beisner, I. Gregory‐Eaves, and B. E. Beisner. 2021. Multi-scale biodiversity analyses identify the importance of continental watersheds in shaping lake zooplankton biogeography. J. Biogeogr. 48: 2298–2311.

Service de la faune aquatique. 2011. Guide de normalisation des méthodes d’inventaire ichtyologique en eaux intérieures, Tome I, Acquisition de données. Ministère des Ressources naturelles et de la Faune. 153p. Québec, Québec.

Su, G., M. Logez, J. Xu, S. Tao, S. Villéger, and S. Brosse. 2021. Human impacts on global freshwater fish biodiversity. Science. 371: 835–838.