Long-term minnow community data from the Bayou Pierre, Mississippi

Long-term community monitoring is becoming an important tool for ecological studies. Historical data are present in a variety of sources but often require considerable effort to extract, filter, and verify prior to analyses. In this dataset we document minnow (sensu lato, Cyprinidae + Leuciscidae) communities in the Bayou Pierre, Mississippi. We include filtered community data from twelve localities and three time periods (1974-75, 1985-89, 2019-20) derived from a mixture of literature, museum collections, and contemporary collecting efforts. All collections were made using comparable methodologies. We also include an additional 29 contemporary collections which do not have historical representation but which cover the majority of the watershed. We further include a trait database coded from literature values which captures both reproductive and ecological traits for the species in these data. These data were used in preparation of a manuscript examining long-term taxonomic, ecological, and functional change within the minnows in the Bayou Pierre, and they are part of a broader research effort to study the effects of fluvial geomorphic evolution on aquatic ecosystems.