A database of freshwater fish species of the Amazon Basin
Authors: Céline Jezequel, Pablo A. Tedesco, Rémy Bigorne, Javier A. Maldonado‐Ocampo, Hernán Ortega, Max Hidalgo, Koen Martens, Gislene Torrente‐Vilara, Jansen Alfredo Sampaio Zuanon, Astrid Acosta, Edwin Agudelo Córdoba, Soraya Barrera Maure, Douglas Aviz Bastos, Juan David Bogotá‐Gregory, Fernando G. Cabeceira, André Luiz Colares Canto, Fernando Marcelo Carvajal-Vallejos, Lucélia Nobre Carvalho, Ariana Cella‐Ribeiro, Raphaël Covain, Carlos DoNascimiento, Carolina Rodrigues da Costa Dória, Cleber Duarte, Efrem J. G. Ferreira, André Vieira Galuch, Tommaso Giarrizzo, Rafael P. Leitão, John G. Lundberg, Mabel Maldonado, José Iván Mojica, Luciano Fogaça de Assis Montag, Willian Massaharu Ohara., Tiago Henrique da Silva Pires, Marc Pouilly, Saúl Prada‐Pedreros, Luiz Jardim de Queiroz, Lúcia Helena Rapp Py‐Daniel, Frank Raynner Vasconcelos Ribeiro, Raúl Ríos Herrera, Jaime Sarmiento, Leandro Melo de Sousa, Lis Fernandes Stegmann, Jonathan Valdiviezo‐Rivera, Francisco Villa, Takayuki Yunoki, Thierry Oberdorff
Journal: Scientific Data
Publication year: 2020
DOI: 10.1038/s41597-020-0436-4
Abstract
The Amazon Basin is an unquestionable biodiversity hotspot, containing the highest freshwater biodiversity on earth and facing off a recent increase in anthropogenic threats. The current knowledge on the spatial distribution of the freshwater fish species is greatly deficient in this basin, preventing a comprehensive understanding of this hyper-diverse ecosystem as a whole. Filling this gap was the priority of a transnational collaborative project, i.e. the AmazonFish project - https://www.amazon-fish.com/. Relying on the outputs of this project, we provide the most complete fish species distribution records covering the whole Amazon drainage. The database, including 2,406 validated freshwater native fish species, 232,936 georeferenced records, results from an extensive survey of species distribution including 590 different sources (e.g. published articles, grey literature, online biodiversity databases and scientific collections from museums and universities worldwide) and field expeditions conducted during the project. This database, delivered at both georeferenced localities (21,500 localities) and sub-drainages grains (144 units), represents a highly valuable source of information for further studies on freshwater fish biodiversity, biogeography and conservation.