Data from: 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.