SeaLifeBase is a global online
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...
of information about
marine life
Marine life, sea life or ocean life is the collective ecological communities that encompass all aquatic animals, aquatic plant, plants, algae, marine fungi, fungi, marine protists, protists, single-celled marine microorganisms, microorganisms ...
. It aims to provide key information on the taxonomy, distribution and ecology of all marine
species
A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...
in the world apart from
finfish
Fishery can mean either the Big business, enterprise of Animal husbandry#Aquaculture, raising or Fishing, harvesting fish and other aquatic life or, more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place (wikt:AKA, a.k.a., fishing grounds). ...
.
SeaLifeBase is in partnership with the
WorldFish Center in Malaysia and the
UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...
.
[SeaLifeBase (SLB ]
FishBase Information and Research Group (FIN). Retrieved 22 July 2011. Daniel Pauly
Dr. Sir Daniel Pauly is a France, 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 ...
is the principal investigator and it is coordinated by Maria Lourdes D. Palomares. , it included descriptions of 85,000 species, 59,400
common name
In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often con ...
s, 15,500 pictures, and references to 39,300 works in the
scientific literature
Scientific literature encompasses a vast body of academic papers that spans various disciplines within the natural and social sciences. It primarily consists of academic papers that present original empirical research and theoretical ...
. SeaLifeBase complements
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. , which provides parallel information for finfish.
History
The origins of SeaLifeBase go back to the 1970s, when the fisheries scientist
Daniel Pauly
Dr. Sir Daniel Pauly is a France, 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 ...
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 management of fisheries is broadly defined as the set of tasks which guide vested parties and managers in the optimal use of aquatic renewable resources, primarily fish. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation ...
used analytical models which required estimates for fish growth and
mortality. Pauly believed that the only practical way fisheries managers could access the volume of data they needed was to assemble all the data available in the published literature into some central repository.
This would mean that when a new hypothesis needs to be tested, the available data will already be there in a validated and accessible form, and there will be no need create a new dataset and then have to validate it.
[Froese R (2011]
"The science in FishBase"
Pages 47–54. In: Villy Christensen and Jay Maclean (Eds.) ''Ecosystem Approaches to Fisheries: A Global Perspective'', Cambridge University Press. . 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 Conservatio ...
, 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 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. . FishBase was extended to cover all
finfish
Fishery can mean either the Big business, enterprise of Animal husbandry#Aquaculture, raising or Fishing, harvesting fish and other aquatic life or, more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place (wikt:AKA, a.k.a., fishing grounds). ...
, and is now the largest online database for fish in the world.
Given FishBase's success, there was naturally 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 the project is develop an information system modelled on
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. , but including all forms of aquatic life, both marine and freshwater, apart from the finfish which FishBase specialises in. Altogether, there are about are 300,000 known species in this category
[SeaLifeBase - home page]
Retrieved 23 January 2017.
See also
*
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 desc ...
*
List of online encyclopedias
This is a list of well-known online encyclopedias that are accessible or formerly accessible on the Internet.
The largest online encyclopedias are general reference works, though there are also many specialized ones. Some online encyclopedias ar ...
Notes
References
* 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.
* 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).
External links
{{Wikidata property, P6018
SeaLifeBase onlineThe SeaLifeBase ProjectFacebook page
The SeaLifeBase Project blog
Marine organisms
Online databases
Biological databases
Biology websites