Integrating information on marine species identification for fishery purposes

摘要: Species identification for fishery purposes has been the subject of a major Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) program since 1960s. One main objectives is to improve catch statistics through accurate species identification. A number guides (geographical), cata- logues (taxonomic) synopses have produced as hard copy, and, more recently, most these publications become freely available on Internet. fact sheets are new electronic product with database structure integrated in Fisheries Global Information System (FIGIS). FIGIS interconnects information many other types related fish- eries (statistics, stocks inventories assessment reports, fisheries inventories, fishing techniques, management systems, introduced species, cultured etc.) wide range services from FAO systems (virtual document library, mapping legislation scientific abstracts). achieves features thanks flexible 3-tier architecture based open-source software (Java, XML, XSL, HTML), metadata framework inter- national standards, formal institutional partnerships sharing, exploitation display web services. Several gaps geographical taxonomical coverage deter- mined; mainly located South America concern several taxa (particularly crustaceans) some fish families paramount importance fisheries. Other tools address multispecies ecosystem modeling also needed. Finally, optimization world- community efforts generating sharing taxonomically knowledge global network current challenge calling an urgent solution.