Transcript TISBE: Taxonomic Information System for the Belgian

A taxonomic and biogeographic information system
of marine species in the Southern North Sea
developed by Flanders Marine Institute
Ward Appeltans, Edward Vanden Berghe & Jan Mees
Flanders Marine Data and Information Centre (VMDC)
Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) Vismijn, pakhuizen 45-52, 8400 Ostend, Belgium
Introduction
Aphia is a register of marine species that the Marine Data and Information Centre of the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) has built and maintains since its
establishment nearly five years ago. This species register (Aphia) serves as a taxonomic backbone in the management of biological data obtained by our own
efforts and those coming from various national and international projects and databases.
Technicalities
Data
Aphia is an MSSQL database with an MS Access input interface. The diagram (fig. 1)
represents the different tables and links.
Currently, Aphia holds 20,000 taxa representing 65
Phyla. Apha includes 10,000 species names of which
2,200 are relegated to synonymy. Remaining names
are those of higher hierarchical levels from the
systematic classification. Besides pure taxonomy,
Aphia contains about 3,000 vernacular names (mainly
Dutch, English, French and German) and 4,000 notes
regarding species biology, ecology, distribution,
habitat, taxonomy and systematics among others. All
the information is referred to its source, which can be
a publication, an expert or a database.
More recently, VLIZ started storing distribution records
for the Southern North Sea. We now have nearly
40,000 distribution records for 400 localities.
b
a
c
Figure . Database diagram – presenting tables for taxonomy, sources, biogeography (a), parent links (b) and
vernaculars (c)
# species names (valid/invalid)
Animalia
Arthropoda
Mollusca
Chordata
Echinodermata
Cnidaria
Others
Proctista
Fungi
Plantae
Monera
1936/257
822/540
552/261
426/294
361/149
2545/533
1433/211
111/1
8/0
80/25
Total
8274/2271
Figure 2. Piechart – representing the percentages of species
names of some of the major groups in Aphia
Figure 3. Screen shot of Aphia’s webinterface.
Taxonomic, bibliographic, biological and biographic
information from species occuring in theSouthern North
sea is availabe online at
http://www.vliz.be/vmdcdata/aphia/index.htm
Conclusions
By screening literature, from recent works to those dating back to the mid nineteenth century, we intend to get a more complete overview of our current and historical
biodiversity. In addition, documenting nomenclature changes, recording synonymy and storing every species record will help in correctly interpreting old and grey
literature. The structure of the database corresponds to the international formats of both the European Register of Marine Species (ERMS) and the International
Taxonomic Information System (ITIS). It will be possible to give taxonomic input to ITIS and ERMS. Our biogeographic system is now already linked with and provides
data to the European node of the global Ocean Biogeographic Information System (EurOBIS). Maintaining our species register and storing biogeographic information is
a work in progress, which falls within VLIZ’s core activities of documenting and integrating marine biodiversity data.
Acknowledgement
Data resulting from this work are contributing to the aims within MarBEF. MarBEF is a EU-funded network of
excellence on Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning (http://www.marbef.org). MarBEF funds allow
W. Appeltans to attend the conference.