FishBase is a
global species database A Global Species Database (GSD) is a digital catalog of organisms often defined around a conservation purpose for the organisms of interest. GSDs attempt to be globally inclusive of species within their inclusion parameters versus local species dat ...
of
fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...
species (specifically
finfish). It is the largest and most extensively accessed online database on adult finfish on the web.
[Marine Fellow: Rainer Froese](_blank)
''Pew Environment Group''. Over time it has "evolved into a dynamic and versatile ecological tool" that is widely cited in scholarly publications.
FishBase provides comprehensive species data, including information on
taxonomy
Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification.
A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...
, geographical distribution,
biometrics
Biometrics are body measurements and calculations related to human characteristics. Biometric authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control. It is also used to identify i ...
and
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
, behaviour and habitats, ecology and
population dynamics as well as reproductive, metabolic and genetic data. There is access to tools such as
trophic pyramids,
identification key
In biology, an identification key, taxonomic key, or biological key is a printed or computer-aided device that aids the identification of biological entities, such as plants, animals, fossils, microorganisms, and pollen grains. Identification ke ...
s,
biogeographical modelling and fishery statistics and there are direct species level links to information in other databases such as
LarvalBase
LarvalBase is a global online database of information about fish eggs, larvae and fry. It includes detailed data on the identification of very young fish and the rearing of fish species important for fisheries and aquaculture. , it included de ...
,
GenBank
The GenBank sequence database is an open access, annotated collection of all publicly available nucleotide sequences and their protein translations. It is produced and maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI; a part ...
, the
IUCN Red List
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...
and the
Catalog of Fishes
Catalog of Fishes is a comprehensive on-line database and reference work on the scientific names of fish species and genera. It is global in its scope and is hosted by the California Academy of Sciences. It has been compiled and is continuously u ...
.
, FishBase included descriptions of 35,000
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
and subspecies, with 325,700
common names, 61,700 pictures, and references to 59,200 works in the
scientific literature
: ''For a broader class of literature, see Academic publishing.''
Scientific literature comprises scholarly publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within an academic field, scie ...
. The site has about 700,000 visits per month.
History
The origins of FishBase go back to the 1970s, when the fisheries scientist
Daniel Pauly
Daniel Pauly is a French-born marine biologist, well known for his work in studying human impacts on global fisheries and in 2020 was the most cited fisheries scientist in the world. He is a professor and the project leader of the Sea Around Us ...
found himself struggling to test a hypothesis on how the growing ability of fish was affected by the size of their gills.
[Bakun A (2011]
"The oxygen constraint"
Pages 11–23. In: Villy Christensen and Jay Maclean (Eds.) ''Ecosystem Approaches to Fisheries: A Global Perspective'', Cambridge University Press. . Hypotheses, such as this one, could be tested only if large amounts of empirical data were available.
[Palomares MLD and Bailly N (2011]
"Organizing and disseminating marine biodiversity information: the Fishbase and SeaLifeBase story"
Pages 24–46. In: Villy Christensen and Jay Maclean (Eds.) ''Ecosystem Approaches to Fisheries: A Global Perspective'', Cambridge University Press. . At the time,
fisheries management
The goal of fisheries management is to produce sustainable biological, environmental and socioeconomic benefits from renewable aquatic resources. Wild fisheries are classified as renewable when the organisms of interest (e.g., fish, shellfish, ...
used analytical models which required estimates for fish growth and
mortality. It can be difficult for
fishery scientists and managers to get the information they need on the species that concern them, because the relevant facts can be scattered across and buried in numerous journal articles, reports, newsletters and other sources. It can be particularly difficult for people in developing countries who need such information. Pauly believed that the only practical way fisheries managers could access the volume of data they needed was to assemble and consolidate all the data available in the published literature into some central and easily accessed repository.
[LarvalBase: A Global Information System on Fish Larvae]
''American Fisheries Society'', Early Life History Section Newsletter, May 2002, 23(2): 7–9. Such a database would be particularly useful if the data has also been standardised and validated.
This would mean that when scientists or managers need to test a new hypothesis, the available data will already be there in a validated and accessible form, and there will be no need to create a new dataset and then have to validate it.
Pauly recruited
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 ...
, and the beginnings of a software database along these lines was encoded in 1988. This database, initially confined to tropical fish, became the prototype for FishBase. FishBase was subsequently extended to cover all
finfish, and was launched on the
Web in August 1996. It is now the largest and most accessed online database for fish in the world.
In 1995 the first
CD-ROM was released as "FishBase 100". Subsequent CDs have been released annually. The software runs on
Microsoft Access
Microsoft Access is a database management system (DBMS) from Microsoft that combines the relational Access Database Engine (ACE) with a graphical user interface and software-development tools (not to be confused with the old Microsoft Access ...
which operates only on
Microsoft Windows.
FishBase covers adult finfish, but does not detail the early and juvenile stages of fish. In 1999 a complementary database, called
LarvalBase
LarvalBase is a global online database of information about fish eggs, larvae and fry. It includes detailed data on the identification of very young fish and the rearing of fish species important for fisheries and aquaculture. , it included de ...
, went online under the supervision of Bernd Ueberschär. It covers
ichthyoplankton
Ichthyoplankton (from Greek: ἰχθύς, , "fish"; and πλαγκτός, , "drifter") are the eggs and larvae of fish. They are mostly found in the sunlit zone of the water column, less than 200 metres deep, which is sometimes called the epi ...
and the juvenile stage of fishes, with detailed data on fish
eggs
Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...
and
larva
A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle.
...
e, fish
identification, as well as data relevant to the rearing of young fish in
aquaculture. Given FishBase's success, there was a demand for a database covering forms of aquatic life other than finfish. This resulted, in 2006, in the birth of
SeaLifeBase.
The long-term goal of SeaLifeBase is to develop an information system modelled on FishBase, but including all forms of aquatic life, both marine and freshwater, apart from the finfish which FishBase specialises in. Altogether, there are about 300,000 known species in this category.
[SeaLifeBase – home page]
. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
Current organization
As awareness of FishBase has grown among fish specialists, it has attracted over 2,310 contributors and collaborators. Since 2000 FishBase has been supervised by a consortium of nine international institutions. To date, the FishBase consortium has grown to twelve members. The
GEOMAR – Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR) in Germany, functions as the coordinating body.
See also
*
Catalog of Fishes
Catalog of Fishes is a comprehensive on-line database and reference work on the scientific names of fish species and genera. It is global in its scope and is hosted by the California Academy of Sciences. It has been compiled and is continuously u ...
*
List of online encyclopedias
References
Further reading
* Bailly N (2010
Why there may be discrepancies in the assessment of scientific names between the Catalog of Fishes and FishBaseVersion 2, 6 May 2010.
* Bailly N, Reyes Jr R, Atanacio R and Froese R (2010
"Simple Identification Tools in FishBase"In: Nimis PL and Vignes Lebbe R. (eds) ''Tools for Identifying Biodiversity: Progress and Problems'', pages 31–36. .
* Christensen V, CJ Walters, R Ahrens, J Alder, J Buszowski, LB Christensen, WWL Cheung, J Dunne, R Froese, V Karpouzi, K Kaschner, K Kearney, S Lai, V Lam, MLD Palomares, A Peters-Mason, C Piroddia, JL Sarmiento, J Steenbeek, R Sumaila, R Watson, D Zeller and D Pauly (2009
Database-driven models of the world's Large Marine Ecosystems''Ecological Modelling'', 220(17): 1984–1996.
* Froese R (2011
"The science in Fishbase"In:
Villy Christensen
Villy Christensen is an ecosystem modeller with a background in fisheries science. He is known for his work as a project leader and core developer of Ecopath, an ecosystem modelling software system widely used in fisheries management. Ecopath was ...
and Jay Maclean (eds) ''Ecosystem Approaches to Fisheries: A Global Perspective'', Cambridge University Press, pages 47–54. .
* Froese R and Pauly D (eds) (2000
''FishBase 2000: concepts, design and data sources''ICLARM, Philippines.
* Froese R and Pauly D (1994
"Fishbase as a tool for comparing the life history patterns of flatfish"''Netherlands Journal of Sea Research'', 32(3/4): 235–239.
* Nauen CE (2004
A public electronic archive on the world’s fishes in support of sustainable fisheriesCTA/Commonwealth Secretariat Seminar, Expert Meeting on ACP-EU Fisheries Relations, Brussels.
* Palomares, M.L.D., N. Bailly and D. Pauly (2009
FishBase, SeaLifeBase and database-driven ecosystem modelingp. 156-158. In: M.L.D. Palomares, L. Morissette, A. Cisnero-Montemayor, D. Varkey, M. Coll and C. Piroddi (eds.) Ecopath 25 Years Conference Proceedings: Extended Abstracts. UBC Fisheries Centre Research Reports 17(3).
* Pauly D (1997
"The Science in FishBase"''EC Fisheries Cooperation Bulletin,'' 10(2): 4–6.
* Robertson R (2008
"Global biogeographical data bases on marine fishes: caveat emptor"''Diversity and Distributions,'' 14(6): 891–892.
* Ueberschär B and Teltow M (1999
"FishBase goes fishing"''Bulletin'', 12(2–3): 38–39.
External links
The Fish Database of TaiwanFishBase for AfricaFishBase FishBlog (FishBase Sverige informerar)''Science newsline'', 3 September 2010.
Rainer Froese on FishBase''Blue Zoo''.
SpeciesBank: Dreams and realitiesRainer Froese, Workshop presentation, 2005.
Fish Morphology and Identification in FishBase''Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA Tervuren)'', Presentation at FishBase and Fish Taxonomy Training Session 2007.
The 6th FishBase Consortium meeting and 3rd Mini FishBase Symposium''FishBytes'', 2005.
''
Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences (CAFS) (; Pinyin: Zhōngguó shuǐchǎn Kēxuéyánjiūyuàn) is a large fisheries research institute. It was founded in 1978 under the Ministry of Agriculture in the People's Republic of China. It is a lea ...
'', 2 September 2008.
Fish on lineDaniel Pauly, Rainer Froese and Maria Lourdes Palomares. A draft guide to learning and teaching ichthyology using the FishBase information system. Updated 17 January 2005.
{{Fishery science topics, expanded=science
Ichthyology
Online databases
Biological databases
Fisheries databases
Biology websites
Multilingual websites