Stable isotope analysis (SIA) has become a pivotal method in food web and ecological research, leading to the establishment of the research field “stable isotope ecology”. We conducted the first systematic review of stable isotope studies in this field in the Baltic Sea macro-region (Eglite et al. 2022). The meta-data collection provided here includes the information extracted from all 164 studies identified in the systematic review across various dimensions (topic, space, time, taxonomic, and technical focus), but not primary stable isotope data. The first published version of this meta-data collection represents the status as of July 10, 2021, and was used to filter and extract meta-data to produce the figures and tables in the review by Eglite et al. (2022). The meta-data collection is a resource for both experienced isotope ecologists and newcomers to grasp and access all published Baltic Sea SIA work on any fundamental or applied research topic, sub-region, taxon, or trophic group of interest. It also represents an ideal foundation for an envisioned "Baltic Isobank" database of primary stable isotope data, following the vision outlined in Eglite et al. (2022). We will provide regular updates of the meta-data collection in the Dryad repository, based on new runs of the systematic review query and including any additions of research papers and corrections received from the stable isotope ecology community. For this purpose, we encourage researchers to inform us about newly published research papers employing stable isotopes in the Baltic Sea ecology field by sending an e-mail with the publication reference to baltic-isobank@geomar.de.

This meta-data collection is based on 164 peer-reviewed stable isotope articles published in the Baltic Sea ecology field. Each article was reviewed in-depth and classified across different dimensions (e.g., topic, space, time, taxonomic focus, and technical focus), but we do not provide primary stable isotope data. The studies that have been published cover searches from 1992 to 2021 (July 10). 

Readme file contains a schematic chart of 12 categories and 43 corresponding categories for which information was extracted from all 164 peer-reviewed studies in the "Baltic Sea stable meta-data collection" excel flat file. Additionally, we provide researchers with examples of how to extract information from this database. This excel flat file contains blank cells.