EGCop: an expert-curated occurrence dataset of European groundwater-dwelling copepods (Crustacea: Copepoda)

The dataset (named "EGCop") contains about 7,000 occurrence records of groundwater-dwelling copepods, located across the European continent. Records were retrieved from literature spanning the 1907 – 2017 period, and from recent international research projects focusing on groundwater biodiversity (e.g., PASCALIS, AQUALIFE, DarCo Biodiversa+).

Each record was attentively scrutinized by senior researchers specialized into the taxonomy and biogeography of freshwater copepods, to provide correct identification of specimens according to the latest advances in copepods’ systematics. Further, spatial uncertainty was estimated for the geographic coordinates of each record, provided at 0.001-degree resolution (~100 m), by coupling in-depth web searches about specimens’ sampling localities with georeferencing GIS techniques. Information about the habitat characterizing the sampling localities is also provided for most records.

Names of most columns in the dataset, which is provided in two different formats (.csv and .xlsx), follow the Darwin Core standard to make data easily interpretable and reusable. Please refer to the README file ("EGCop_README") for additional information.