摘要：Fish swimming capacity is a key life history trait critical to many aspects of their ecology. U-crit (critical) swimming speeds provide a robust, repeatable relative measure of swimming speed that can serve as a useful surrogate for other measures of swimming performance . Here we collate and make available one the most comprehensive datasets on U-crit swimming abilities of tropical marine fsh larvae and pelagic juveniles, most of which are reef associated as adults . The dataset includes U-crit speed measurements for settlement stage fshes across a large range of species and families obtained mostly from feld specimens collected in light traps and crest nets; and the development of swimming abilities throughout ontogeny for a range of species using reared larvae . In nearly all instances, the size of the individual was available, and in many cases, data include other morphological measurements (e .g . “propulsive area”) useful for predicting swimming capacity. We hope these data prove useful for further studies of larval swimming performance and other broader syntheses .
