The Fish Database of Taiwan

Kwang-Tsao Shao1, Hsin-Hua Lin1, Yung-Chang Lin2, Pai-Lei Lin2, Ching-Yi Chen2, Cheng-Yi Tsai3

1 Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, No. 128, Sec. 2, Academia Rd. Nankang Dist., Taipei, Chinese Taipei; 2 Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, No. 128, Sec. 2, Academia Rd. Nankang, Taipei, TAIWAN, R.O.C, , Chinese Taipei; 3 Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, No. 128, Sec. 2, Academia Rd. Nankang, Taipei, TAIWAN, R.O.C, Taipei, Chinese Taipei

Corresponding author(s): Kwang-Tsao Shao (zoskt@gate.sinica.edu.tw), Hsin-Hua Lin (linhh@gate.sinica.edu.tw)

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Abstract

The Fish Database of Taiwan is centered on fish taxonomy and includes the following information: (1) basic information about each species of fish (including their scientific names, morphological characteristics, habitats and behavior, and so on) and images (including specimens and ecological photos, X-rays of fish skeletons, and otoliths); (2) specimen data of 10 institutes in Taiwan and those that have been archived overseas; (3) distributional data (about 230,000 entries); (4) bibliography of references related to the fish of Taiwan; (5) other information, such as a gallery of fish photos, rare Chinese characters with the “fish” radical, 9 e-books on fish, an illustrated glossary of fish terms, Taiwan seafood guide, and many others. With the funding from Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Program (TELDAP), all the information is continually updated and can be accessed at http://fishdb.sinica.edu.tw. Currently, The Fish Database of Taiwan contains 3,115 species of fish in Taiwan from 298 families. These numbers do not include unidentified fish species, especially deep-sea fish. In collaboration with the global fish database, FishBase (http://www.fishbase.org), which was developed by the WorldFish Center, The Fish Database of Taiwan has established a Chinese mirror site, through which both databases can access each other’s fish data. Through this collaboration with FishBase, users of other global databases, such as Species 2000, Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS), Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), and BioNet-International can also access the latest information about the fish of Taiwan. 

Keywords: Taiwan, Fish, Taxonomy, Checklist, Occurrence, Specimen, Specimen

Project details

Project title: Digital Archives of  Taiwan Fish Database
Personnel: Kwang-Tsao Shao
Funding: National Science Council, Executive Yuan, Taiwan
Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Program (TELDAP)
Study area descriptions/descriptor: The checklist, specimens, and images of Taiwan marine and freshwater fishes

Data published through GBIF: http://taibif.tw/ipt/resource.do?r=fish

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: Marine and fresh waters of Taiwan and the off-shore islands, including Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, Green Island, Lanyu, Liuqiu, Dongsha Atoll, and Spratly Islands
Coordinates: 19°46'48''N and 26°37'12''N Latitude; 119°43'48''E and 123°54'36''E Longitude 

Temporal coverage: January 1, 2002 - December 31, 2012

Methods

Method step description: null
Study extent description: The checklists mainly describes the wild fishes collected and found in Taiwan. The specimens cover the collections of adults, juveniles, and eggs of fishes. The morphological characteristics would be measured for every specimen as well as images would be taken, and then the specimen would be preserved in 95% alcohol and/or liquid Nitrogen for the records and further DNA barcoding analysis. The ecological photos and videos are taken under waters periodically, mainly for the coral reef and freshwater fishes. The distributional data (about 230 thousands entries) provide the occurrence records integrated from several different research projects, the subjects included deep-sea fishes, costal and economic fishes, demersal and benthic fishes, Dongsha Atoll fishes, freshwater and endemic fishes.
Sampling description: The fish specimens and distributional data in The Fish Database of Taiwan source from many research projects conducted in the past and now, therefore depending on research subjects and purposes, specimen sampling is conducted by different methods and various fishery gears. For example, bottom and beam trawls are adopted for capturing marine demersal and benthic fishes, gillnets for economic fishes, fishing rods or falling gear for single specific species, light traps and zooplankton nets for fish eggs and larval fishes, fyt net for estuary fishes, electric fishing for river fishes, and even directly purchasing samples at fish markets. The data included in the Fish Database of Taiwan has been collected for more than 30 years even though the Database was late established in1990s, and the archiving is still ongoing.

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive The Fish Database of Taiwan
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: http://taibif.tw/ipt/archive.do?r=fish
Publication date of data: 2014-03-25
Language: English

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2014-02-21
Hierarchy level: Dataset