Composition follows habitat and depth in cryptobenthic fish assemblages: indicator value for Mediterranean coastal habitats

This repository holds the data and analysis code behind our study of cryptobenthic fish assemblages in the Aegean Sea. We surveyed these small, bottom-dwelling fishes by underwater visual census in two Turkish gulfs (Saros in the northeast and Gökova in the southeast), and classified every sampling unit to the EUNIS habitat typology so that assemblage composition could be related to habitat type and depth. You will find the processed sample-unit and per-station abundance matrices, the habitat and protection-status metadata, the ordination coordinates behind the figures, and the full set of R and Python scripts used to produce the reported statistics and figures. Running R/run_all.R from the repository root reproduces the analyses; package versions and random seeds are documented so the results can be regenerated exactly. Precise sampling-station coordinates are withheld, because they would reveal the locations of rare cryptobenthic species inside marine protected areas. Approximate, grid-level coordinates are included instead, and exact positions are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. The data are shared under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence and the code under the MIT licence. If you use them, please cite this repository.