Larvae and suspended benthic fauna collected with a plankton pump near deep-sea hydrothermal vents at the East Pacific Rise from 1998 to 2025

This dataset provides the counts for larvae and some later life stage benthic fauna, identified to varying levels of taxonomic granularity, collected with a large-volume plankton pump near deep-sea hydrothermal vents on the East Pacific Rise on 13 cruises from 1998 to 2025. Sampling for this 27-year time series of larval abundance was conducted using a plankton pump (McLane WTS-LV50) filtering up to ~40 cubic meters over 63-micron mesh. Specimens were preserved in ethanol and identified morphologically under a dissecting microscope. Samples were sorted completely, thus concentrations per taxon may be derived from the counts and volume filtered. The primary data file is a single compiled table with the leftmost columns as a Darwin Core Occurrence extension table and rightmost columns from a Darwin Core Event core table. These are also provided separately as two additional files formatted for submission to the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS).