Metadata of European lake fishes dataset.

Here we provide the metadata for an overview on fish species presence/absence in 1943 Palearctic (Europe + Turkey) lakes and reservoirs. The data have been obtained by standardized multi-mesh gillnet fishing, primarily to fulfill the requirements of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD). The species list encompasses about 100 species, a few of them split into subspecies. The database has been accumulated for the purpose of intercalibration of the evaluation systems for the WFD, and has systematically been used for research in the EU project WISER