Kicking off the FishBase and SeaLifeBase anniversary celebrations

Kicking off the FishBase and SeaLifeBase anniversary celebrations

The year 2020 marks the 30th anniversary of FishBase and 15th anniversary of SeaLifeBase, two online global biodiversity information systems that, together, provide biological and ecological information on more than 110,000 marine species.

To celebrate these milestones in the times of physical distancing, we are launching a year-long digital campaign that leads up to September 2020, when we celebrate these anniversaries, and to September 2021, when we hope to get together in person at a symposium to be held during the Annual FishBase Consortium Meeting.

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Galápagos as a living laboratory for the Anthropocene

Galápagos as a living laboratory for the Anthropocene

Galápagos. Image by averno_ph, Needpix.

Galápagos. Image by averno_ph, Needpix.

An international team of researchers led by experts at the Charles Darwin Foundation and with the collaboration of the Sea Around Us principal investigator, Daniel Pauly, and William Cheung, from the Changing Ocean Research Unit at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, just published a commentary in Nature Climate Change proposing the idea of Galápagos as a living laboratory for the Anthropocene.

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A new use for museum fish specimens

A new use for museum fish specimens

A new use for museum fish specimens

Preserved specimens. Image by Merryjack, Flickr.

The discoloured fish that rest in glass jars in museums across the world are normally used by specialists as references to study the traits that identify certain species. But a new study proposes an additional use for such ‘samples.’

Published in the Journal of Applied Ichthyology, the paper proposes using such specimens to estimate the length-weight relationships of fish that are hard to find alive in their natural environment.

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