Marine Species of the British Isles And Surrounding Seas Esther Hughes DASSH & MEDIN

Aims The history of the UK marine species dictionary WORMS, ERMS, MSBIAS and other acronyms. USING MSBIAS

The history of the UK marine species dictionary Taxonomic nomenclature is one of the oldest controlled vocabularies! 17 th /18 th century – The age of the ‘gentleman naturalist’. Many surveys undertaken for specific interests e.g. molluscs - often self funded. 1900’s – 1950’s Regional lists appear e.g. Plymouth Marine Fauna, Fauna of the Clyde Sea etc. 1980’s Northern Ireland Sublittoral Survey, data stored in database needed checklist for efficient storage = 1987 ‘Species directory’ created Howson and Picton (updated several times in subsequent decade) Species dictionary integrated into the NHM Dictionary – integrated into the NBN species list/ Marine Recorder list

The history of the UK marine species dictionary 2000’s – NHM support for marine list dropped. Updates now add hoc. Marine Recorder,Unicorn (DB used by many commercial companies) dictionaries diverge. Updates patchy… Meanwhile in Continental Europe… Creation of ERMS - European register of marine species: a check-list of the marine species in Europe and a bibliography of guides to their identification (Costello et al. 2001) 2005 – ERMS Database on the internet 2007 – ERMS goes Global - WORMS! (World Register of Marine Species)

MSBIAS Needed a managed list – to account for updates Needed a UK controlled vocabulary for MEDIN This is not just a marine or a UK problem. PESI (Pan European Species Inventory) Was funded by the EU to create an all-taxa species list for Europe - MBA Involvement in PESI allowed for the development of an updated species list for the British Isles (MSBIAS ) as a subset of WORMS Integrated Marine Recorder and Unicorn lists with MSBIAS Updated taxonomy Integrated with UK Species Inventory at the NHM.

How does the species dictionary work now? General taxonomy changes updated automatically by WORMS via taxonomic experts - updates MSBIAS MSBIAS steering group allow new species to be added to UK lists. MSBIAS team liaise with NHM to keep changes aligned with the UK Species Inventory. > NHM control NBN dictionary. Turnaround for changes currently 1-2 days (may take longer to get to tools).

MSBIAS Demo