Long-term trends of epibionts reflect Mediterranean striped dolphin abundance shifts caused by morbillivirus epidemics

Data on the presence and intensity of the epibiotic crustaceans Xenobalanus globicipitis, Syncyamus aequus, and Pennella balaenoptera on 462 cetaceans (Delphinus delphis, Grampus griseus, Globicephala melas, Stenella coeruleoalba, and Tursiops truncatus) stranded along the coasts of Valencia (Spain, western Mediterranean) within 1980-2023. The data was collected by members of the Marine Zoology Unit (Universitat de Valencia, Spain). Permission and funding to collect stranded dolphins were given by the Wildlife Service of the Valencian Regional Government, Spain.

These data were used in the research article "Long-term trends of epibionts reflect Mediterranean striped dolphin abundance shifts caused by morbillivirus epidemics", published in the Journal of Animal Ecology. It was used for descriptive graphs, for calculating infection parameters (i.e., mean intensity, prevalence, and their Confidence Intervals), for Generalized Additive Models (GAMs), and for estimating some input parameters of the mechanistic models.