World Register of Marine Species
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| Abbreviation | WoRMS |
|---|---|
| Formation | 2008 |
| Headquarters | Ostend, Belgium |
| Coordinates | 51°13′40.25″N 2°56′28.07″E / 51.2278472°N 2.9411306°E |
| Website | marinespecies.org |
The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) is a database that aims to provide an authoritative and comprehensive list of names of marine organisms.[1]
Contents
The content of the registry is edited and maintained by scientific specialists on each group of organism. These taxonomists control the quality of the information, which is gathered from malacological journals and several regional and taxon-specific databases. WoRMS maintains valid names of all marine organisms, but also provides information on synonyms and invalid names. It will be an ongoing task to maintain the registry, as new species are constantly being discovered and described by scientists. In addition, the nomenclature and taxonomy of existing species is often corrected or changed as new research is constantly being published.
History
WoRMS was founded in 2008 and grew out of the European Register of Marine Species and the UNESCO-IOC Register of Marine Organisms (URMO), which was compiled by Jacob van der Land (and several colleagues) at the National Museum of Natural History, Leiden [2] It is primarily funded by the European Union and hosted by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) in Ostend, Belgium. WoRMS has established formal agreements with several other biodiversity projects, including the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and the Encyclopedia of Life. In 2008, WoRMS stated that it hoped to have an up-to-date record of all marine species completed by 2010, the year in which the Census of Marine Life was completed.[3]
As of February 2018, WoRMS contained listings for 480,931 marine species names (including synonyms) of which 240,633 are valid marine species (95 % checked). Their goal is to have a listing for each of the approximately more than 240,000 marine species.[4][5]
VLIZ also hosts the Interim Register of Marine and Nonmarine Genera (IRMNG), using a common infrastructure.[6]
See also
- Census of Marine Life (CoML)
- Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS)
- Catalog of Fishes
- AlgaeBase
References
- ^ "Towards a World Register of Marine Species". World Register of Marine Species. Retrieved 2009-02-16.
- ^ "About". World Register of Marine Species. Retrieved August 24, 2013.
- ^ Catherine Brahic (2008-06-25). "How many species live in the sea?". New Scientist.
- ^ "WoRMS - World Register of Marine Species". World Register of Marine Species. Retrieved 2018-02-11.
- ^ Costello, MJ; Bouchet, P; Boxshall, GW; Fauchald, K; Gordon, DP; et, al. (2013). "Global coordination and standardisation in marine biodiversity through the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) and related databases". PLOS ONE. 8 (1): e51629. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0051629. PMC 3541386. PMID 23505408.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link) - ^ "Interim Register of Marine and Nonmarine Genera (IRMNG)". Lifewatch regional portal. LifeWatch. Retrieved 10 December 2018.
External links
- World Register of Marine Species
- Horton, Tammy; Gofas, Serge; Kroh, Andreas; Poore, Gary C. B.; Read, Geoffrey; Rosenberg, Gary; Stöhr, Sabine; Bailly, Nicolas; Boury-Esnault, Nicole (2017-12-28). "Improving nomenclatural consistency: a decade of experience in the World Register of Marine Species". European Journal of Taxonomy. 0 (389). doi:10.5852/ejt.2017.389. ISSN 2118-9773.
- Vandepitte, Leen; Vanhoorne, Bart; Decock, Wim; Vranken, Sofie; Lanssens, Thomas; Dekeyzer, Stefanie; Verfaille, Kevin; Horton, Tammy; Kroh, Andreas (2018-04-06). "A decade of the World Register of Marine Species – General insights and experiences from the Data Management Team: Where are we, what have we learned and how can we continue?". PLOS ONE. 13 (4): e0194599. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0194599. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 5889062. PMID 29624577.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)