WHY AND HOW AQUARIUMS AND FISHBASE CAN WORK TOGETHER TO PROMOTE FISH KNOWLEDGE AND CONSERVATION?  ASSESSEMENT OF A FOUR-YEAR PROJECT

 Aquariums have evolved over the last decades from exhibiting animals primarily for public enjoyment to conservation organizations whose missions are to inspire and contribute significantly to wildlife conservation. In France, the Association of Aquarium Curators (UCA) groups today 29 active members working in 26 aquariums. Despite significant implications in many conservation and research programmes, UCA’s aquarium contributions to science remains low. One possible solution to highlight the contribution of UCA members to the knowledge and conservation of fish could be to develop a strong and sustainable partnership with FishBase. The idea is to upload the data generated by UCA aquariums directly on FishBase so that they would be freely available on-line (Figure 1).

 The main goal of this article is to describe how this collaboration was developed in the past four years. Based on a survey conducted in 2019, 18 curators agreed to spend some time on this project and shared their list of species and pictures. Fifteen agreed to appoint a FishBase representative, whose main missions would be to collect and curate data in each aquarium before sending them to FishBase. We also found that UCA members have successfully bred over 100 species. Overall, 851 species are hosted within the seven aquariums for which we obtained the list of species. This study also highlighted that less than 10% of species hosted in aquariums are well known in FishBase.  The increasing number of species maintained and reproduced in aquariums allows new opportunities for fruitful research collaborations and contributions of a wide array of disciplines. First and foremost, UCA aquariums have the potential to become “conservations centers ” where real conservation and research work is done.  Beyond conservation biology, aquariums could contribute to basic and applied research on wildlife husbandry, nutrition, disease, physiology, and reproduction. Data generated from aquarium could also generate large-scale comparison of life stage traits that would be otherwise impossible to perform. The sustainable development of this new partnership will rely chiefly on the implication of the FishBase representatives, associated with a dedicated research focus and adequate institutional support through research funding and staffing, and dedicated personnel in FishBase. To be successful in the long term, this new partnership will require also strengthening collaborations among aquariums, as well as collaborations between aquariums and academia, and hobbyists. It is anticipated that new aquariums could join this project.