Fish species richness in the Terminos Lagoon: An occurrence data compilation of four sampling campaigns along a multidecadal series

As the nekton's central biological representatives, fish are an important natural resource subject to environmental conditions and human activities in the Terminos Lagoon. An initiative in 1980 was carried out to systematically sample the fish community of Terminos Lagoon for an annual cycle; the effectiveness of its results led to replicate in the lagoon the same sampling design for three more campaigns in 1998, 2010, and 2016. Constituted as a Flora and Fauna Protection Area in 1994, the Terminos Lagoon has received many efforts to inventory its biodiversity, particularly on the fish community since the 70’s, but none as the present one based on consistent survey protocols over four decades. Here we present an occurrence dataset that contributes to the knowledge of tropical fish distribution in coastal habitats from the Terminos Lagoon Flora and Fauna Protection Area, one of the largest lagoon ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico.A total of 142 fish species, belonging to 90 genera, 48 families, 16 orders, and two classes are presented in this study. Information on fish species occurrence data is provided corresponding to the Terminos Lagoon coastal ecosystem, southern Gulf of Mexico, assembled from four time periods at 1980, 1998, 2010, and 2016. The records form part of a consistently homogeneous database compilation, mostly derived from the research program's sampled material on tropical fishery resources of the “Instituto de Ecologia, Pesquerias y Oceanografia del Golfo de Mexico (EPOMEX)”. The current dataset represents the first and most comprehensive online open-access source of information concerning the fish community occurring along and wide of the Terminos Lagoon ecosystem, with 1,249 data records and an abundance of 48,717 organisms. Data are available through the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS).