We analyzed network level specialization for eight Indo-Pacific networks of obligate, mutualistic gobies and shrimps, and elucidated ecological and evolutionary factors driving specialization. To accomplish this we collected and analyzed data on species pairings in Moorea, French Polynesia (lat. -17.49, long. -149.84), Kenting, Taiwan (lat. 21.95, long. 120.76), and Kimbe Bay, New Britain, Papua New Guinea (PNG; lat. -5.50, long. 150.12), and combined these observations with previously published data from Seychelles Islands (Polunin and Lubbock 1977), Great Barrier Reef, Australia (Cummins 1979), Red Sea, Israel (Karplus et al. 1981), Japan (Yanagisawa 1984), and the Gulf of Thailand, Thailand (Nakasone and Manthachitra 1986). We also systematically collected and analyzed habitat data for shrimps and gobies in Moorea, Taiwan, and PNG. We found specialization was affected by variability in habitat use for both gobies and shrimps and by phylogenetic history for shrimps. Habitat use was phylogenetically conserved among shrimp, and thus effects of shrimp phylogeny on partner choice were mediated in part by habitat. By contrast, habitat use and pairing patterns in gobies were not related to phylogenetic history. This asymmetry appears to result from evolutionary constraints on partner use in shrimps and convergence among distantly-related gobies to utilize burrows provided by multiple shrimp species. Results indicate that the evolution of mutualism is affected by life history characteristics that transcend environments and that different factors constrain interactions in disparate ecosystems. These data are associated with this publication: Thompson AR, Adam TC, Hultgren KM, Thacker CE (in press). Ecology and evolution affect network structure in an intimate marine mutualism. The American Naturalist. This is a collection of short term studies spanning 1972 to 2011.