The Making of FishBase (and its uses, maintenance, etc.) Daniel Pauly Sea Around Us University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada Ocean Conservation Masterclass (Lecture 5 of 10) University of Western Australia Perth, May 24, 2017 d.pauly@oceans.ubc.ca
The true precursor to FishBase: My card index box on fish biology and population dynamics, initiated in early 1977
Then in 1987 Daniel Pauly and Rainer Froese met at the Institute for Marine Science in Kiel, Germany, and shared a wonderful misconception: That fisheries in the developing world would improve if managers had access to data on fish, and training. At the time, training was provided by FAO and bilateral agencies (such as IDRC), but information of fish was scattered and needed to be gathered, standardized and made widely available. The FishBase idea was born.
Which led to a project (Dec. 1988):
We built on erroneous assumptions That the taxonomy of fishes was sorted out; That experts would volunteer to help; That technology was not a problem; That therefore the task at hand could be achieved in 3-5 years with 2-3 encoding staff; That 500 managers worldwide would be the users; That one of the big international institutions (FAO, UNEP, IUCN, IOC, ) would eventually take over.
Over 20 years later We learnt since with regard to training and information dissemination, that there is no connection between knowledge about a species and status of its stocks. Example: the Northern cod of Canada, probably one of the best (or most) studied stock in the world
500 Overfished Not overfished 100 400 cod 80 References in FB (n) 300 200 100 plaice herring sprat 60 40 20 Growth records in FB (n) 0 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 Relative stock size (B / Bmsy ) 0 Number of references and growth records in FishBase 2010 relative to the status of the worst stock, for 19 European species (data of 2007).
Also, we learnt that fish taxonomy remains a problem Sorting out valid names and correct spellings was and remains a major headache; The number of species keeps increasing (200-500 new fish species per year); Names keep changing (1% per year); Knowledge about fishes increases exponentially.
Also, most experts can t be bothered. One of the few exceptions: Jack Randall, here checking photos in FishBase Also, UBC s Don McPhail and Rick Taylor!
Moreover, the hardware changed IBM AT was best Daniel s first Schlepptop Rainer s first Portable IBM AT was top IBM AT was top First scanner (handheld) First LAN (dead slow) First CD-Burner in the Philippines
as did operating systems and database software
not to speak of Internet software
As well, ENCODING is important and never-ending, as could have been attested by the FishBase Team in the 1990s
and in the 2000s
What do our ½ million visitors per month want? Photos Common names Scientific names References Info by Country Eschmeyer Glossary Identification Fish collections Trophic ecology FishBase Book Population dynamics Reproduction Physiology Tools Ecology Fish Quiz Diseases Genetics June August 2009 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 Percent of visitors accessing this topic
FishBase Users by Continent Oceania Australia Africa South America North America Asia Europe Based on 2122 entries in the FishBase Guestbook, June 2004
100 USA FishBase usage by country (%) (July 2004) 10 1 0.1 0.01 0.001 Luxembourg PNG Cuba Greece Pakistan Kenya Belarus Ghana Brazil Australia Saudi Arabia South Korea China India Russia Peru Germany Japan 0.0001 0.0001 0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10 100 Internet usage by country (%)
Citation frequency 1900-2005 (articles cited at least once) Citation class # of items % >1000 5,063 0.03 600-999 9,685 0.05 500-599 6,637 0.03 400-499 12,557 0.06 300-399 27,059 0.14 200-299 74,025 0.37 100-199 343,269 1.72 50-99 953,064 4.78 25-49 2,006,529 10.06 15-24 2,226,603 11.17 10-14 2,106,995 10.57 5-9 3,891,542 19.52 2-4 4,931,952 24.74 1 3,343,789 16.77 Total cited 19,938,769 100.00 Non-cited 38,163,319 Out of about 38 million items, half have not been cited at all. FishBase belongs to 0.03% of all most cited items ever
FishBase widened the scope of fisheries science and provided the opportunity for global studies Κnowledge Information
Partners and Sponsors
The FishBase Consortium
FishBase Book and CDs released annually from 1996 2000, followed by a final DVD in 2004
The success of FishBase is clearly illustrated by our website, which receives monthly: 40-50 million hits; Over ½ million unique visitors. The hits come from: All continents; A wide variety of users: Individuals Universities Museums Research institutes NGOs
FishBase went online in October 1998
FishBase in 2010 FishBase search page in 2010
Now let s see if I can show this live