FishBase An Internet Gateway to Information on Fish

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FishBaseAn Internet Gateway to Information on
Fish

• Rainer Froese
• Institute of Marine Research
• Kiel, Germany
• rfroese_at_ifm.uni-kiel.de

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Overview

• What is FishBase?
• Who uses FishBase?
• Constraints to usage
• Important Partners
• Lessons learned
• Where is FishBase going?

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What is FishBase?

• www.fishbase.de gtgt
• Species summary information gtgt
• Common names gtgt
• Synonyms gtgt
• Population dynamics gtgt
• Life history tool gtgt
• Wizards gtgt
• Biogeographic modelling gtgt

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Who Uses FishBase?

• Hits and Visitor Sessions
• Types of Users
• Where Do They Come From?
• What Do They Want? gtgt
• gt 1000 pages link to www.fishbase.org
• Where is the Science?

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Where is the Science?85 ISI Citations, 3 in
Nature, 2 in Science
IT
June 2002
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Constraints to Usage
gtgt
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Important Partners

• Eschmeyers Catalog of Fishes
• FAO Databases (SIDP, FIGIS, Catch)
• IUCNs Red List
• National Fish Databases
• Genbank
• ECOTOX
• Bibliographies (ZR, NISC, ASFA)

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Lessons Learned

• Science first attitude
• Yes attitude towards suggestions
• Invite, accept and act on criticism
• Data quantity and quality first
• Keep it simple, software keeps changing
• Invest in people
• Give more credit than expected
• What is not used is useless

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Future Directions

• Play leading role in biodiversity research
• Participate in relevant initiatives (GBIF, ENBI,
  Species 2000, OBIS, MARBEF, EVBL, PBI, ECOFISH)
• From FishBase to SpeciesBase

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www.fishbase.org
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FishBase vs Internet Usage
Source for Internet growth NUA Internet Services
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Based on 1391 entries in the FishBase Guest Book,
June 2002
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Based on 1391 entries in the FishBase Guest Book,
June 2002
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