FBIP: SeaKeys - Iziko_UCT_Historical Fish

Around the 1930’s Stevenson and Day along with the University of Cape Town (UCT) started up the UCT ecological survey project which aimed to create a reference collection of the biodiversity along the southern African coastline and various other localities around the world (e.g. Beaufort shelf transect Alaska, Madagascar, etc.) (Griffiths et al. 2010). Initially the survey/project was conducted along the shoreline of southern Africa (estimated collection areas: 36). The survey/project was later expanded to surveying the estuaries of southern Africa (estimated collection areas: 17). The survey/project was completed by conducting deeper water trawls and dredges of the west, south and east coast of southern Africa. It is important to note that each collection area contains various collection sites, for example False Bay (collection area) contains an estimated 856 collection sites. The reference collection and registers were donated to the IZIKO South African museum in the 1960’s by UCT. Numerous amounts of literature have been published by using the data in the registers (Barnard 1951, Stock & Day 1959, Stock & Day 1962, Griffiths 1974, Blaber 1974 and Griffiths et al. 2010). Currently there are a number of taxanomic projects underway, that rely on the data contained within the registers. By making the data available in a sensible electronic format will greatly improve the time taken to complete current and future projects that rely on the registers for data. Along with the reference specimen collection it also contains a vast number of observational records, which could potentially provide a massive istorical database of species occurrences dating back to more than forty years ago. Datasets such as these could potentially give us greater insights into the effects of global change on biodiversity (Chapman 2005, Chapman 2010).

自20世纪30年代起，史蒂文森与戴伊携手开普敦大学（UCT）启动了该大学的生态调查项目，旨在构建沿南非洲海岸线及其世界各地（例如，贝福特滩带、阿拉斯加、马达加斯加等）的生物多样性的参考藏品。最初，调查项目在南非海岸线（估计收集区域：36个）进行。随后，调查项目进一步扩展至对南非沿岸河口（估计收集区域：17个）的考察。通过在西、南、东海岸进行更深入的水下拖网和疏浚作业，该调查项目得以圆满完成。值得注意的是，每个收集区域均包含多个收集点，例如，假湾（收集区域）内就含有约856个收集点。20世纪60年代，由UCT捐赠给南非的IZIKO博物馆的参考藏品和登记册。基于登记册中的数据，已发表了大量文献（如Barnard 1951年、Stock & Day 1959年、Stock & Day 1962年、Griffiths 1974年、Blaber 1974年和Griffiths等2010年的作品）。目前，有多个分类学项目正在进行中，这些项目依赖于登记册中的数据。将数据以合理的电子格式提供，将极大地提高依赖登记册数据进行当前和未来项目的时间效率。此外，参考标本藏品中还包含大量的观察记录，这些记录可能构成一个关于物种出现历史数据库，其时间可追溯至四十多年前。此类数据集有望为我们深入了解全球变化对生物多样性的影响提供更深入的见解（Chapman 2005年，Chapman 2010年）。