Our work to standardize metadata for scientific bottom trawl surveys has identified 95 recent and ongoing surveys around the globe and described their metadata, underscoring the crucial importance of these surveys for ocean biodiversity monitoring (Maureaud et al. 2021). While less than half of the data are publicly available, we published a dataset in 2023 that contains extensively quality-controlled data from over 20 scientific bottom trawl survey programs that make their data publicly available. The FISHGLOB public dataset can be accessed on GitHub and is described in a recent manuscript (Maureaud et al. 2024). Central to these metadata and data curation projects was building long-term relationships with data providers in dozens of countries, incorporating their invaluable knowledge about their own datasets, and recognizing their contributions with co-authorships.
We encourage widespread reuse of the metadata and data. We ask that anyone doing so cite the primary data sources for the relevant surveys detailed in Maureaud et al. 2021 as well as that manuscript, Maureaud et al. 2024, and the DOI of the GitHub repository. This enables us to track uptake of the datasets and to identify projects using them, and gives appropriate recognition to the data providers. Users should familiarize themselves with the quality control and data filtering processes and options in FISHGLOB (taxonomic harmonization, spatiotemporal standardization, CPUE calculation, etc.) and should read the metadata and summary documents for each survey used. Questions about the dataset are best asked via GitHub Issues.