Filtered GBIF occurrences of macrobenthic invertebrates across the Mediterranean Sea used for rarity analysis

GBIF occurrence records of soft-sediment macrobenthic invertebrates (Annelida, Arthropoda, Echinodermata, Mollusca) downloaded from GBIF (download DOI: 10.15468/dl.9urshj) and filtered for Mediterranean-scale Index of Relative Rarity (IRR) analysis. Filters applied: (1) spatial cleaning using CoordinateCleaner package (Zizka et al., 2019) (capitals, centroids, equal coordinates, GBIF headquarters, biodiversity institutions, zero coordinates); (2) restriction to records post-1990; (3) removal of duplicate records; (4) strict Mediterranean bounding box (lon: -5.5 to 36 E, lat: 30 to 46 N) excluding Atlantic and Black Sea polygons; (5) removal of terrestrial points using Natural Earth land polygons; (6) taxonomic harmonization via GBIF backbone matching and WoRMS validation. Final dataset: 133,552 occurrences, 1066 species, 228 grid cells (1x1 degree).