An Inter-Institutional Database of Fish Biodiversity in the Neotropics

新热带地区（南美洲和中美洲）的研究和保护工作依赖于获取居住在这一特定地区的生物的信息。新热带地区的许多地区正在经历快速的环境恶化，消除了生物多样性，并最终影响了我们了解世界这一地区自然资源的生物学和历史的能力。不同领域的研究项目，如人口与群落生态学、生物地理学、系统学和进化，而保护和管理这些资源的努力往往受到阻碍，因为我们无法获得大学和主要博物馆的研究收藏中已有的关于这些生物的信息。最近在计算机辅助收集资料管理方面取得的成就已经达到了一定的复杂程度，使人们能够清点和加强这种生物多样性资料，并使这些资源更容易为研究和保护界所利用。这个项目将建立一个关于南美洲和中美洲淡水鱼收集资料的国际机构间盘存数据库。三个主要的研究机构将合作建立一个集中的鱼类生物多样性信息数据库，这些信息目前存放在几个分散的机构中。这些信息包括物种鉴定和分类信息、地理位置和相关的收集、生境和环境数据。来自几个北美和拉丁美洲机构的数据将合并成一个单一的数据库。该项目将加强对这个中央数据库的访问，并为其提供额外的研究工具。费城自然科学院将协调数据库的建设和新研究工具的开发。密歇根大学将作为拉丁美洲参与者的联络人，提供技术支助和远程访问数据库。康奈尔大学将为开发中央数据库和MUSE （nsf赞助的收藏管理系统）之间的接口提供支持。该项目的研究结果将极大地提高研究人员获取新热带鱼生物多样性信息的能力，以用于生态、生物地理、进化和保护倡议。这项工作还将激发对鱼类动物群的新研究，否则这是不可能的，也不可行的。通过商业开发和管理可再生渔业资源的新经济倡议，利用这个项目所促进的资料可能会刺激当地经济。最后，该项目将直接协助合作研究土地的努力，以促进北美科学家与拉丁美洲同行之间的持续交流。

Research and conservation efforts in the Neotropics (South and Central America) are dependent upon access to information on the organisms inhabiting this particular region. Many areas within the Neotropics are undergoing rapid environmental deterioration, eliminating biological diversity and ultimately affecting our ability to understand the biology and history of the natural resources of this part of the world. Research programs in diverse fields such as population and community ecology, biogeography, systematics and evolution, and conservation efforts to protect and manage these resources are often hampered by our inability to obtain access to the kind of information already available on these organisms in the research collections of universities and major museums. Recent achievements in computer-aided collection information management have reached a level of sophistication which permit efforts to inventory and enhance this biodiversity information and make these resources more available to the research and conservation community. This project will produce an international, inter-institutional inventory database of collections information on the freshwater fishes of South and Central America. Three major research institutions will cooperate to build a centralized database of biodiversity information on fishes now held in several widely-scattered institutions. Such information includes species identification and taxonomic information, geographic locality and associated collection, habitat and environmental data. Data from several North American and Latin American institutions will be combined into a single database. The project will enhance access to and provide additional research tools for this centralized database. The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia will coordinate building of the database and development of new research tools. The University of Michigan will serve as the liaison to the Latin American participants, providing technical support and remote access to the database. Cornell University will provide support for developing the interface between the central database and MUSE, the NSF-sponsored collection management system. The results of this project will greatly improve the ability of researchers to gain access to Neotropical fish biodiversity information for use in ecological, biogeographic, evolutionary, and conservation initiatives. This work will also stimulate new lines of research on the fish fauna that otherwise would not be possible nor feasible. Access to the information facilitated by this project will likely stimulate local economies by means of new economic initiatives on the commercial exploitation and management of renewable fisheries resources. Finally, this project will directly assist cooperative research land efforts to stimulate continued interchange between North American scientists and their Latin American counterparts.