ORMEF_v1: Occurrence Records of Mediterranean Exotic Fishes (updated to 01/01/2026)

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 12,841 records.

1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Azzurro E, D'Amen M, Biancone N (2026). ORMEF_v1: Occurrence Records of Mediterranean Exotic Fishes (updated to 01/01/2026). Version 1. Occurrence dataset.

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Hellenic Center for Marine Research. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 8ce8e762-1ebd-4b8c-9b4b-3810e6b19b68.  Hellenic Center for Marine Research publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Ocean Biodiversity Information System.

Keywords

Geo-referenced occurrence; Mediterranean; Non-indigenous species; fish; Lessepsian; Exotic species

Contacts

Geographic Coverage

The Mediterranean sea

Taxonomic Coverage

No Description available

Temporal Coverage

Project Data

The ORMEF (Occurrence Records of Mediterranean Exotic Fish) database serves as an authoritative reference for Mediterranean bio‑invasion research, providing a living, continuously updated archive that supports scientists, managers, and policymakers. This updated version of ORMEF includes geo‑referenced records spanning the entire Mediterranean region from 1896 to January 1, 2026. The database currently contains 12841 occurrence records distributed across the territorial waters of 20 Mediterranean countries, sourced from 889 scientific publications. Each record extracted from the scientific literature was associated with a set of standardized information, including species name, year and month of observation, minimum and maximum depth, locality, and the country where the species was recorded. The corresponding bibliographic reference, representing the source of each geo‑referenced record, is also included in the database. The database will be periodically updated by checking the main journals devoted to the publication of exotic fish records. All data can be interactively explored through the new ORMEF web platform (www.ormef.eu). The user‑friendly interface allows precise visualization of geo‑referenced occurrences, with intuitive filtering and querying tools. The platform also features animated temporal reconstructions and customizable time-interval filters, enabling dynamic exploration of invasion patterns over time and space.

The personnel involved in the project:

Ernesto Azzurro

• Owner

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9805-3164

Manuela D'Amen

• Principal Investigator

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5910-4267

Noemi Biancone

• Programmer

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4673-028X

Sampling Methods

Georeferenced occurrence records were gathered through an extensive literature search mainly through Google Scholar, ISI Web of Science, and Scopus, by multiple search criteria and using the scientific names of the species and a combination of terms such as exotic, non-indigenous, alien in conjunction with the Mediterranean Sea and names of Mediterranean countries, in the title, abstract, and keywords. All records were manually verified to identify potential outliers and in-land data points. These records were checked against the information provided by the original source and manually moved to the localities indicated in the source, only when wrongly reported. Duplicate records were removed. The dataset structure was based on Darwin Core Standard (DwC, https://dwc.tdwg.org/), and taxonomic information was extracted from the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS; www.marinespecies.org).

Method step description:

1. Not applicable

Additional Metadata