Fish habitats, fish diets, and bathymetry for 18 terminal lakes

Terminal lakes are lakes with no hydrologic surface outflows and with losses of water occurring only through surface evaporation and groundwater discharge. We quantified the extent of the littoral zones (areas where 1% or more of surface irradiation reaches the lake bottom) and open water zones (areas where less than 1% of surface irradiation reaches the lake bottom) in 18 terminal lakes. Additionally, we quantified habitat usage and diets of the fish species inhabiting these lakes. This dataset contains includes seven lakes from North America (Atitlan, Crater, Eagle, Mann, Pyramid, Summit, Walker), one from South America (Titicaca), five from Eurasia (Caspian, Issyk-Kul, Neusiedl, Qinghai, Van), and five from Africa (Abijatta, Manyara, Nakuru, Shala, Turkana).