Online Information about Fishes:
What is Available, and Who is Using It?
Online Taxonomy, 20.09.2012, Linnean Society of London
Rainer Froese, GEOMAR, Kiel
rfroese@geomar.de
700,000
Scientific Names (and Synonyms)
Keeping track of scientific names for >32,000 species
is a constant headache....
but it can be done!
FishBase SYNONYMS Table
Status
Misspelling
CountOfStatus
accepted name
No
32458
ambiguous synonym
Yes
181
ambiguous synonym
No
2842
misapplied name
Yes
119
misapplied name
No
6852
provisionally accepted name
No
3
synonym
Yes
8100
synonym
No
41143
Completeness
A well known species...(1)
A well known species ..(2)
A little-known species..(1)
A little-known species ..(2)
Completeness
Author, year, synonyms, classification, distribution, FAO areas
A little-known species..(1)
A little-known species ..(2)
Completeness
Distribution for a well known species
SHow here distribution fields
Completeness
Identification
Identification for a well known species
SHow here distribution fields
Traditional Identification Keys
Identification
Completeness
700,000
Completeness
Fisheries & Conservation
Growth
Completeness
Ecosystem
modeling
Trophic analysis
Capturing Uncertainty
Bayesian Statistics
• How to turn parameters assembled in
FishBase into Bayesian priors for the next
analysis?
• Co-author wanted, volunteers?
Who are the Users?
Where are the Users?
Impact
• Google has indexed over 4 million web pages
or documents containing the word „fishbase“
• About 1000 other web sites link to FishBase
• fishbase.org receives about 700,000 visits
every month (36 million hits)
Where is the Science?
• Over 1500 citations recorded by the FB team
• Over 2000 citations in Google Scholar
Business Model?
Muddling through
• About 0.5 million US$ per year
• Mostly from participation in research projects
• Inobtrusive calls for donations and advertising
have been tried, do not bring enough
• Core contributions from established
institutions or endowment would be good
Thank You
Questions?
FishBase Symposium 11.09.2012, Tervuren
Rainer Froese, GEOMAR, Kiel
rfroese@geomar.de