Global Freshwater Fish Knowledge Shortfalls

Significance StatementFreshwater fishes support aquatic ecosystems and human well-being, yet global knowledge of their diversity remains incomplete. This repository quantifies three major biodiversity knowledge gaps—Linnaean, Wallacean, and Darwinian shortfalls—across 18,821 species in 3,364 drainage basins. We provide globally scalable analyses and a multi-objective prioritization framework to guide efficient, equity-oriented freshwater biodiversity data collection. All code and processed data are fully reproducible and available here.Supporting Information:Table_Extended_S1.xlsx: Inventory of 18,821 freshwater fish species included in the analysis (updated 24 November 2024).Table_Extended_S2.xlsx: Body-size data flags distinguishing measured and imputed values.Table_Extended_S3.xlsx: Inventory of freshwater fish biogeographical deficiency units identified in this study.Table_Extended_S4.xlsx: Drainage basins prioritized for future freshwater biodiversity data collection.Figure_Extended_S1.pptx Animated visualization of global first georeferenced freshwater fish records.All R scripts used for data acquisition, processing, analysis, and model fitting in this study are openly available via GitHub Repository and archived on Zenodo for long-term.