EAISSNA - Electronic Atlas of Ichthyoplankton on the Scotian Shelf of North America (OBIS Canada)

The EAISSNA database contains information on location and time of spawning, and
abundance and distribution of eggs and larvae of marine fish on the Scotian
Shelf of North America. 197 scientific publications from 1919 to 2001 were
reviewed and original analysis conducted on datasets from Department of
Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) Scotian Shelf Ichthyoplankton Program (SSIP) and
Fisheries Ecology Program (FEP) for 1976-82 from data archives, providing
information on 107 taxa of fish and invertebrates. The database is intended for
use in environmental assessment and management activities associated with
offshore hydrocarbon development and production and ocean management.

Supporting maps and database tables, and possible enhancements and developments
including standards based World Wide Web (WWW) access are also described.
Compact Disks (CD) (report, lists, maps and data) can be obtained from the
authors.The database provides georeferenced information on distribution and
seasonality of fish eggs and larvae, an important component of the ecosystem of
the Canadian continental shelf. It is used by environmental managers, the oil
industry and fisheries researchers. The database resides on the Fisheries
and Oceans Canada Maritime Science Virtual Data Centre (VDC), which supports
access and searches, as well as manipulation and visualization. The database
includes new summary analyses of geospatial data from the Scotian Shelf
Ichthyoplankton Program (SSIP) and Fisheries Ecology Program (FEP) and
displays the information as electronic images (Microsoft portable network
graphics format(PNGs) as well as vector representations (MapInfo Professional,
MID/MIF transfer format).