AquaMaps is a collaborative project with the aim of producing computer-generated (and ultimately, expert reviewed) predicted global distribution maps for

marine species Marine life, sea life, or ocean life is the plants, animals and other organisms that live in the salt water of seas or oceans, or the brackish water of coastal estuaries. At a fundamental level, marine life affects the nature of the planet. ...

on a 0.5 x 0.5 degree grid of the oceans based on data available through online species databases such as

FishBase FishBase is a global species database of fish species (specifically finfish). It is the largest and most extensively accessed online database on adult finfish on the web.

and SeaLifeBase and species occurrence records from

OBIS The Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS), formerly Ocean Biogeographic Information System, is a web-based access point to information about the distribution and abundance of living species in the ocean. It was developed as the information ...

GBIF The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around the ...

and using an environmental envelope model (see

niche modelling Species distribution modelling (SDM), also known as environmental (or ecological) niche modelling (ENM), habitat modelling, predictive habitat distribution modelling, and range mapping uses computer algorithms to predict the distribution of a spec ...

) in conjunction with expert input. The underlying model represents a modified version of the relative environmental suitability (RES) model developed by Kristin Kaschner to generate global predictions of marine mammal occurrences. According to the AquaMaps website in August 2013, the project held standardized distribution maps for over 17,300 species of fishes, marine mammals and invertebrates. The project is also expanding to incorporate

freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...

species, with more than 600 biodiversity maps for freshwater fishes of the Americas available as at November 2009. AquaMaps predictions have been validated successfully for a number of species using independent data sets and the model was shown to perform equally well or better than other standard species distribution models, when faced with the currently existing suboptimal input data sets. In addition to displaying individual maps per species, AquaMaps provides tools to generate species richness maps by higher taxon, plus a spatial search for all species overlapping a specified grid square. There is also the facility to create custom maps for any species via the web by modifying the input parameters and re-running the map generating algorithm in real time, and a variety of other tools including the investigation of effects of climate change on species distributions (see relevant section of th
AquaMaps search page
.

Coordination

The project is coordinated by Dr

Rainer Froese Rainer Froese (born 25 August 1950 in Wismar, East Germany) is a senior scientist at the Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research (GEOMAR) in Kiel, formerly the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR), and a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation ...

o
IFM-GEOMAR
and involves contributions from other research institutes including th

University of British Columbia (UBC), th
Swedish Museum of Natural History
(NRM - Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet), the WorldFish Center in Malaysia, and CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research in Australia. The creation of AquaMaps is supported b
MARAPew Fellows Program in Marine ConservationINCOFISH

Sea Around Us Project The Sea Around Us is an international research initiative and a member of the Global Fisheries Cluster at the University of British Columbia. The Sea Around Us assesses the impact of fisheries on the marine ecosystems of the world and offers mitig ...

Biogeoinformatics of Hexacorals

FishBase FishBase is a global species database of fish species (specifically finfish). It is the largest and most extensively accessed online database on adult finfish on the web.

an
SeaLifeBase

Coordination

See also

References

Further reading

External links