Polar - tropical biodiversity comparisons are becoming essential in order to investigate fully the origin and maintenance of the larger scale patterns of life on Earth. Although many polar data are now readily to hand it is often more difficult to locate accurate and up to date tropical datasets to use in direct comparisons. This dataset represents an attempt to rectify this imbalance using two of the largest clades in shallow tropical seas at the present day. The data were obtained from primary published literature which is fully referenced below and in the companion research paper to this dataset. They relate to nine regional localities which stretch across the tropical realm from the Indo-West Pacific to the Americas. For each locality there is a full species list, with each species being assigned to both a genus and family. The latest taxonomic references have been used to ensure that all these lists are based on current biological nomenclature.

Funding:

Partly from NERC grant NE/I005803/1

Partly from BAS core funds