Data for Distribution, Abundance, and Detection Frequency of Lepomis peltastes Cope (Northern Sunfish) in the Illinois Waterway, Illinois USA

This dataset contains Northern Sunfish (Lepomis peltastes) catch record data from Multi-Agency Monitoring dataset from the Illinois Waterway (Lockport Pool-Alton Pool) Illinois, USA from 2019-2024. These data are associated with a paper accepted for publication in Northeastern Naturalist in May 2026 entitled "Distribution, abundance, and detection frequency of Lepomis peltastes Cope (Northern Sunfish) in the Illinois Waterway, Illinois USA."

These data are in a CSV format. There are seven data columns: year, pool (LP: Lockport Pool, BN: Brandon Road Pool, DR: Dresden Island Pool, MA: Marseilles Pool, ST: Starved Rock Pool, PE: Peoria Pool, LG: La Grange Pool, and AL: Alton Pool), gear (D: daytime boat electrofishing, F: regular fyke net, HS: small hoop net, and M: mini fyke net), coordinate_north_south (latitude), coordinate_east_west (longitude), habitat (MCB: main-channel boarder, SCB: side-channel boarder, and BWC: fully connected backwater), and catch (number of Norther Sunfish caught at that location). These data were analyzed using R Statistical Software (version 4.4.2; R Core Team 2024). See Readme file for a more detailed description of dataset and dataset variables.