Mapping the global distribution of the freshwater hydrozoan Craspedacusta sowerbii

The invasive freshwater jellyfish Craspedacusta sowerbii (Limnomedusae, Olindiidae) is native to East Asia and since the end of the 19th century, was observed in Europe, then in North America, and across the globe. In recent decades, reports of C. sowerbii have drastically increased in Europe, North and South America, Australia, Asia, and parts of Africa. However, the worldwide distribution of C. sowerbii remains poorly documented due to the lack of information in various aquatic environments. This dataset globalises the occurrences of this species from an extensive literature review and database review. Information extracted from the literature/database were organised and synthesised according to specific criteria, such as geographic area (continent and country), GPS coordinates, habitat types (i.e., closed/open, artificial/natural, rivers, canals, ponds, lakes, etc.). To understand the altitude ranges of C. sowerbii, altitude data were extracted from the elevation layer downloaded from WorldClim (http://www.worldclim.org/; accessed in June 2021) using QGIS version 3.16.3 software.