From FishBase to SpeciesBase

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From FishBase to SpeciesBase
Rainer Froese Germany rfroese_at_ifm-geomar.de Stock
holm Biodiversity Informatics Symposium 1.12.2008

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The Vision

• Back in 1987, two scientists had an idea
• Create a database with key-information on 200
  commercial fish species
• Use it for research
• Make it available to 500 fisheries managers in
  developing countries
• 21 years later
• www.fishbase.org contains information on 31,000
  species
• Has over 1,000 citations in the scientific
  literature
• Has over 1 million visitors per month in the
  Internet

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If these stocks were Stocks
October 2008 34 million hits 1 million visitors
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It Looks Like This
Atlantic cod
Gadus morhua
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And This
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And This
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Where is the Science?
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Need a Hammer?
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Reaching out
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Feedback
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Who is Using it?
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How did they find us?
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Where?
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Google Analytics
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What?
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Where is the Science?85 ISI Citations, 3 in
Nature, 2 in Science (June 2002)
IT
June 2002
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Google Scholar, April 2006 1610 citations,
including 5 in Nature and 7 in Science
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Who is FishBase?
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32/32
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Partners and Sponsors
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From FishBase to SeaLifeBase
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If this looks familiar..
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The usual suspects
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From SeaLifeBase to SpeciesBase
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Fish are from FishBase
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Crabs are from SeaLifeBase
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Algae will be from AlgaeBase

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Terrestrial species still looking for partners
????Base presented through SpeciesBase

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Global Species Information Systems (GSIS)
General agreement on the need for several portals
in different languages with regional/national
focus But key information shall be the same
across portals (to be exchanged between
providers)
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Current GSIS
Encyclopedia of Life (EoL, USA) (www.eol.org) Atl
as of Living Australia (ALA) (www.ala.org.au) Spe
ciesBase (Europe) (www.speciesbase.org)
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Thank You