FISHNET is a distributed information system that seeks to provide data towards answering two fundamental questions regarding marine biodiversity: how many vouchered records exist for each species of fishes, and what are their distributions in time and space? Recent advances in information technology make possible efficient access to one of the major resources for such knowledge, and the only resource in which data are backed up by actual specimens of the organisms: natural history museums.

Vieglais, D., E.O. Wiley, C.R. Robins, and A.T. Peterson. 2000. Harnessing museum resources for the Census of Marine Life: The FISHNET Project. Oceanography 13(3):10–13, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2000.02.

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