Some Lessons from FishBase

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Some LessonsfromFishBase
Rainer Froese Germany rfroese_at_ifm-geomar.de
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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
• 19 years later
• www.fishbase.org contains information on 29,382
  species
• Has over 1,000 citations in the scientific
  literature
• Has about 2 million visitors per month in the
  Internet

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If these stocks were Stocks
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The Race to 100 Million
2008
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It Looks Like This
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And This
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Where is the Science?
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Who is Using it?
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Where?
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What?
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About 10,000 visitors per month
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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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Link-Analysis
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What Else can FishBase Do? Invasive
Species
Aquarium Fishes which may Establish themselves in
Hawaii (6 of 111)
Name Species Length (cm) Doubling time (years) Score (n) Established already?
Mozambique tilapia Oreochromis mossambicus 39 1.4 4.4 83 ?
Guppy Poecilia reticulata 3.5 0.5 44 ?
Green swordtail Xiphophorus hellerii 14 lt 1 23 ?
Redbreast tilapia Tilapia rendalli 45 1.4 4.4 23 ?
Redbelly tilapia Tilapia zillii 40 1.4 4.4 19 ?
Wami tilapia Oreochromis hornorum 24 1.4 4.4 17 -
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More Applications Trends in Global Catches
(Froese and Pauly 2003)
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Fish Rulers
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Under The Hood
Under the Hood

• FishBase Structure

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Design Principles
Under the Hood

• Do not over-normalize
• Avoid (hide) codes
• Dedicated fields vs free-text fields
• Science and Data first approach
• Transparency (reference, entered, modified, date)
• Strategic decisions about data (comparative
  advantage, importance, future maintenance)

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Under The Hood
Evolve or Go Extinct

• From DataEase to MS Access to MySQL to ???
• From HTML to Cold Fusion to PHP to ???
• 6 mirrors around the world, not enough
• www.ZoneEdit.com for load-balancing, maybe not
  sufficient

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General Principles
Spirit

• Keep it simple
• Yes-Attitude
• Be opportunistic
• Give more credit than was expected
• Deal with errors
• Expose data
• Invite, accept and act on criticism
• Compare data
• Use your data

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Business Model

• Champion Rainer Froese
• Key supporters Daniel Pauly Cornelia Nauen
• Institutions
• ICLARM
• Since 2000 FishBase Consortium
• Donors
• European Commission
• Sloan, Germany
• Pew, USGS, NRDC, Taiwan, Australia,

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Operating Mode

• Strong leadership by one person
• Lose oversight by Consortium
• Full-time data entry by team of specialists
  full-time programmers
• Large network of additional contributors (mostly
  photos corrections)

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Future Plans
Future Plans

• Complete coverage and content
• Improve mapping
• Add more analytical tools
• Move to mobile devices
• Do FishBase for all aquatic species

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Greetings from the FishBase Team
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Thanks to our Partners and Sponsors