International FishBase and SeaLifeBase Symposium – 2023

July 11, 2023January 4, 2024

Africa Museum in Tervuren. Photo by Jean Housen, Wikimedia Commons.

The Sea Around Us partner, FishBase, is the largest global information system on fishes. It provides encyclopaedical information on all described fishes and includes many tools for scientists in a large array of ichthyological disciplines. With about 700,000 visits per month, it is the most successful database on any group of living organisms.

SeaLifeBase complements the success of FishBase and has become an important platform for information on non-fish marine organisms.

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Socotra’s catch reconstruction: rising pressure on overfished stocks

July 5, 2023January 4, 2024

Small-scale fisheries catches in Socotra, an archipelago that belongs to Yemen and is located off the north-eastern tip of Africa in the western Indian Ocean, reached an all-time high of 12,000 tonnes in 2000, declined to about 3,300 tonnes by 2014 and then slightly increased to 3,700 tonnes by 2019.

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Black and white snapper in the Red Sea, Egypt

How warmer waters from climate change affect fish’s biochemistry (and growth)

June 27, 2023March 22, 2024

Black and white snapper in the Red Sea, Egypt. Photo by Derek Keats, Wikimedia Commons

Warmer water than that to which a fish is used becomes an aggressor of sorts that impacts internal biochemical processes and forces the fish to stop growing at a smaller size than it would normally do in optimal habitat conditions, new research shows.

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Indian Ocean catches of pricey and vulnerable sharks and tunas 30 per cent higher than officially reported

June 21, 2023January 4, 2024

A fresh tuna at a fish market. Photo in the public domain from Rawpixel

Catches of large pelagic fishes such as tunas and sharks in the Indian Ocean are 30 per cent higher than officially reported by the agency in charge of managing these stocks, new research has found.

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Explore the Sea Around Us database – in two minutes

June 7, 2023January 4, 2024

Since 1999, the Sea Around Us – under the leadership of Dr. Daniel Pauly – has been the purveyor of fisheries catch data and associated indicators that have allowed researchers, NGOs, government agencies, and intergovernmental organizations, among others, to conduct a variety of studies that support efforts to protect our global ocean and the marine biodiversity that lives within it.

To celebrate World Oceans Day 2023, we prepared a short, guided tour through our database to help you quickly familiarize yourself with its main features.