Amphipod species in European and nearby seas

Background: Data on the geographical distribution of species underpin nature conservation planning, natural resource management, environmental assessments and fundamental understanding of the natural world. Here, we provide a dataset on Amphipoda species reported in the scientific literature to be present in European and adjacent seas. New information: In this dataset, each record is associated with taxonomic information (i.e. species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom) and sampling event details including date, location and geographical coordinates (longitude and latitude). The occurrence records included in the dataset were collected from 1936 to 2024. The study area encompassed the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean (from the region of northern Norway to the Cape Verde Archipelago, including the Icelandic waters), the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. These regions were characterised by fragmented species distribution information, dispersed across multiple national maritime territories and pronounced variation in key environmental parameters, including salinity, temperature and bathymetry. An inventory of 18,559 records, corresponding to 1,238 species, is presented here.