Fishes of the Fishes of the WorldWorld

In the ComputerIn the Computer

Rainer FroeseGermany

rfroese@ifm-geomar.de

The VisionThe Vision

Back in 1987, two scientists had an idea… 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

19 years later The database contains information on 29,000 species It has over 1,000 citations in the scientific literature It has about 2 million visitors per month in the Internet

If these stocks were Stocks…

Usage per Month

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

A 98 A 99 A 00 A 01 A 02 A 03 A 04 A 05 A 06

Years (August)

Hit

s (m

illio

ns)

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

Use

r se

ssio

ns

(mil

lion

s)

January 2006:23 million hits

3 million visitors

And the Winner Is…And the Winner Is…

Why Fish?Why Fish?

Why Fish?

Who?Who?

FishBase Web Users

Individuals

Private sector

Universities

Governments

NGOs

Museums

Int. Research Centres

Based on 2408 entries in the FishBase Guestbook, September 2005

Where?Where?

FishBase Users by Continent

North America

Europe

Asia

South America

Africa

Australia

Oceania

Based on 2408 entries in the FishBase Guestbook , September 2005

What?What?

Common names

Scientific names

Direct linksSpecies summaries

Photos

Specialist topics

Based on 2.5 million page views by directory on Kiel server in September 2005

FishBase Usage by Topic

Where is the Science? Invasive Species

Name Species Length (cm)

Doubling time (years)

Score (n)

Established already?

Mozambiquetilapia

Oreochromis mossambicus

39 1.4 – 4.4 83 Guppy Poecilia

reticulata3.5 0.5 44

Green swordtail

Xiphophorus hellerii

14 < 1 23 Redbreasttilapia

Tilapia rendalli 45 1.4 – 4.4 23 Redbelly tilapia

Tilapia zillii 40 1.4 – 4.4 19 Wami tilapia Oreochromis

hornorum24 1.4 – 4.4 17 -

Aquarium Fishes which may Establish themselves in Hawaii (6 of 111)

Where is the Science?

Trends in Global Catches (Froese and Pauly 2003)

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

1951 1956 1961 1966 1971 1976 1981 1986 1991 1996

Years

Pe

rce

nt

of

Wo

rld

Fis

he

rie

s

26%5.1 years

38%

4.3 years

31%5.0 years

22%4.1 years

Undeveloped

Developing

Fully exploited

Overfished

Collapsed

What Can You Do?What Can You Do?

Stop Overfishing Let them Spawn Don’t Eat Baby Fish Get the FisherMin ruler

The David Suzuki Foundation is keen to develop `localized´ versions

Greetings from the FishBase Greetings from the FishBase TeamTeam

Thanks to ourThanks to our Partners and Sponsors Partners and Sponsors