A database about spawning behavior of freshwater fish species in China

Fish species in freshwater habitats play an important role in maintaining the health of freshwater ecosystems and providing nutrition for human society, but are especially vulnerable to the impacts of human activities represented by dam constructions. Although the extensive research on the taxon and occurrence of freshwater fish species in China has been well conducted, freshwater fish conservation still eagerly require datasets related to reproductive habits. In this paper, based on a list of 1,384 freshwater fishes species in China, underlying spawning behavior data were extracted from published papers（n=1,020）, monographs and reports（n=63）, data-sharing websites（n=7） and disposaled in a standardised way to form a national scale database. The focus of this database mainly including spawning seasons, spawning temperature, diameter and properties of fish eggs, incubation conditions and migratory habits. This database represents a highly valuable source of information for further studies on numerical simulation of freshwater ecosystem and conservation of freshwater fish diversity.