1. From FishBase to SpeciesBase
Rainer Froese
Germany
Stockholm Biodiversity Informatics Symposium

2. The Vision Back in 1987, two scientists had an idea… 21 years later
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
21 years later
contains information on 31,000 species
Has over 1,000 citations in the scientific literature
Has over 1 million visitors per month in the Internet

3. If these stocks were Stocks…
October 2008
34 million hits
1 million visitors

4. It Looks Like This…
Atlantic cod
Gadus
morhua

5. And This

6. And This

7. Where is the Science?

10. Need a Hammer?

12. Reaching out

14. Feedback

16. Who is Using it?

17. How did they find us?

18. Where?

19. Google Analytics

20. What?

21. Where is the Science? 85 ISI Citations, 3 in Nature, 2 in Science (June 2002)

22. Google Scholar, April 2006: 1610 citations, including 5 in Nature and 7 in Science

23. Who is FishBase?

24. 32/32

25. Partners and Sponsors

26. From FishBase to SeaLifeBase

27. If this looks familiar..

28. The usual suspects

29. From SeaLifeBase to SpeciesBase

30. Fish are from FishBase

31. Crabs are from SeaLifeBase

32. Algae will be from AlgaeBase

33. Terrestrial species still looking for partners
????Base presented through SpeciesBase

34. Global Species Information Systems (GSIS)
General agreement on the need for several portals
in different languages with regional/national focus
But key information shall be the same across portals
(to be exchanged between providers)

35. Encyclopedia of Life (EoL, USA)
Current GSIS
Encyclopedia of Life (EoL, USA) (
Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) (
SpeciesBase (Europe) (

36. Thank You