Some Lessons from Fish Base Rainer Froese Germany

Some Lessons from Fish. Base Rainer Froese Germany rfroese@ifm-geomar. de

The Vision l Back in 1987, two scientists had an idea… è Create a database with key-information on 200 commercial fish species è Use it for research è Make it available to 500 fisheries managers in developing countries l 19 years later è www. fishbase. org contains information on 29, 382 species è Has over 1, 000 citations in the scientific literature è Has about 2 million visitors per month in the Internet

If these stocks were Stocks…

The Race to 100 Million 2008

It Looks Like This…

And This

Where is the Science?

Who is Using it?

Where?

What?

About 10, 000 visitors per month

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

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

Link-Analysis personal pages enterprise companies other private institutions international commissions/consortia info portals, references/searchives, blogs

What Else can Fish. Base Do? Invasive Species Aquarium Fishes which may Establish themselves in Hawaii (6 of 111) Name Species Length Doubling (cm) time (years) Score Established (n) already? Mozambique tilapia Oreochromis mossambicus 39 1. 4 – 4. 4 83 Guppy Poecilia reticulata 3. 5 0. 5 44 Green swordtail Xiphophorus hellerii 14 <1 23 Redbreast tilapia Tilapia rendalli 45 1. 4 – 4. 4 23 Redbelly tilapia Tilapia zillii 40 1. 4 – 4. 4 19 Wami tilapia Oreochromis hornorum 24 1. 4 – 4. 4 17 -

More Applications Trends in Global Catches (Froese and Pauly 2003)

Fish. Base can be utilized to produce simple, but effective posters: …. . customized for a fishery, a fishing area, fishing gear, fish market, etc. A simple poster showing the actual lengths of fish species at first maturity can be a useful management tool. Posted in public places (e. g. public market), consumers can compare the size of the fish they buy with the pictures in the poster and know whether the fish has reached maturity. 19/32

Fish Rulers

Under the Hood • Fish. Base Structure Under The Hood

Under the Hood • Do not Design over-normalize Principles • Avoid (hide) codes • Dedicated fields vs free-text fields • `Science and Data first´ approach • Transparency (reference, entered, modified, date) • Strategic decisions about data (comparative advantage, importance, future maintenance)

Evolve or Go Extinct From Data. Ease to The MS Access to My. SQL Under Hood to ? ? ? • From HTML to Cold Fusion to PHP to ? ? ? • 6 mirrors around the world, not enough • www. Zone. Edit. com for loadbalancing, maybe not sufficient

Spirit • • • Keep it simple General Principles Yes-Attitude Be opportunistic Give more credit than was expected Deal with errors – Expose data – Invite, accept and act on criticism – Compare data – Use your data

Business Model • `Champion´: Rainer Froese • Key supporters: Daniel Pauly & Cornelia Nauen • Institutions: – ICLARM – Since 2000: Fish. Base Consortium • Donors: – European Commission – Sloan, Germany – Pew, USGS, NRDC, Taiwan, Australia, …

Operating Mode • Strong leadership by one person • Lose oversight by Consortium • Full-time data entry by team of specialists; full-time programmers • Large network of additional contributors (mostly photos & corrections)

Future Plans • Complete coverage and content Future Plans • Improve mapping • Add more analytical tools • Move to mobile devices • Do Fish. Base for all aquatic species

Greetings from the Fish. Base Team

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