Ernesto AZZURRO, BIANCONE N., D’AMEN M., GRIFONI P., SMERALDO S.,
STRAFELLA P., DE MARCO R., FERRI F.
CNR-IRBIM, Ancona, Italy, IRPPS-CNR, Rome, Italy, IZSM, Portici, Italy, ISPRA,
Rome, Italy
E-mail: ernesto.azzurro@cnr.it
ORMEF: A NEW INTERACTIVE GEOPORTAL ON EXOTIC FISH
OCCURRENCES
Abstract
Increasing efforts are dedicated to monitor the occurrence, progressive expansion and
ecological impacts of exotic species in the Mediterranean Sea but scientific information often
remains scattered in the scientific literature with limited access by the general public and policy
makers. The ORMEF Geoportal is the first interactive website on Mediterranean exotic fishes,
which capitalizes the homonymous database, a comprehensive and robust compilation of
observations recorded in the entire Mediterranean Region from 1896 to present days. Today,
the ORMEF geoportal allows searching among 5017 georeferenced occurrences distributed in
the territorial waters of 20 Mediterranean Countries and extracted from almost 700 scientific
papers. The ORMEF Geoportal provides spatio-temporal data on a total of 199 fish taxa,
introduced by different vectors. ORMEF records were submitted to severe quality controls,
checked for geographical and taxonomic biases and the entire dataset was peer reviewed two
times by anonymous referees to be finally stored to the SEANOE repository and published by
the journal Scientific data. The ORMEF Geoportal provides a new authoritative reference for
Mediterranean bioinvasion research, informed management and policy making.
Keywords: Mediterranean, exotic fishes, invasions, georeferenced records, geoportal
Introduction
Exotic species introduced in the Mediterranean Sea provide one of the best documented
and impressive examples of biological invasions in the marine environments, especially
fish species, due to their relative easiness of detection and increasing monitoring efforts
(Golani et al., 2021). Related spatial information is currently handled by many online
databases, but updated archives of georeferenced point records are seldom displayed
and
interactive
interplay
is
generally
limited:
see
Aqua
NIS
(www.corpi.ku.lt/databases/aquanis), DAISIE (https://www.gbif.org/dataset/39f36f10559b-427f-8c86- 2d28afff68ca), EASIN (https://easin.jrc.ec.europa.eu/)13, ESENIAS
(http://www.esenias.org/),
ELNAIS
(https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-andmaps/data/external/elnais-invasive-alien-species-data),
NOBANIS
(https://www.nobanis.org/),
MAMIAS
(http://www.mamias.org/),
(MedMIS.
http://www.iucn-medmis. org).
Here we introduce the ORMEF geoportal, an interactive website, which capitalizes a
comprehensive repository of georeferenced data published in the scientific literature
(Azzurro et al., 2021; Azzurro et al., 2022a). The aim of the ORMEF Geoportal is to
provide an easy to access system to explore exotic fish occurrences in the
Mediterranean Sea.
2nd Mediterranean Symposium on the Non-Indigenous Species (Genoa, Italy, 22-23 September 2022)
13
STRAFELLA P., DE MARCO R., FERRI F.
CNR-IRBIM, Ancona, Italy, IRPPS-CNR, Rome, Italy, IZSM, Portici, Italy, ISPRA,
Rome, Italy
E-mail: ernesto.azzurro@cnr.it
ORMEF: A NEW INTERACTIVE GEOPORTAL ON EXOTIC FISH
OCCURRENCES
Abstract
Increasing efforts are dedicated to monitor the occurrence, progressive expansion and
ecological impacts of exotic species in the Mediterranean Sea but scientific information often
remains scattered in the scientific literature with limited access by the general public and policy
makers. The ORMEF Geoportal is the first interactive website on Mediterranean exotic fishes,
which capitalizes the homonymous database, a comprehensive and robust compilation of
observations recorded in the entire Mediterranean Region from 1896 to present days. Today,
the ORMEF geoportal allows searching among 5017 georeferenced occurrences distributed in
the territorial waters of 20 Mediterranean Countries and extracted from almost 700 scientific
papers. The ORMEF Geoportal provides spatio-temporal data on a total of 199 fish taxa,
introduced by different vectors. ORMEF records were submitted to severe quality controls,
checked for geographical and taxonomic biases and the entire dataset was peer reviewed two
times by anonymous referees to be finally stored to the SEANOE repository and published by
the journal Scientific data. The ORMEF Geoportal provides a new authoritative reference for
Mediterranean bioinvasion research, informed management and policy making.
Keywords: Mediterranean, exotic fishes, invasions, georeferenced records, geoportal
Introduction
Exotic species introduced in the Mediterranean Sea provide one of the best documented
and impressive examples of biological invasions in the marine environments, especially
fish species, due to their relative easiness of detection and increasing monitoring efforts
(Golani et al., 2021). Related spatial information is currently handled by many online
databases, but updated archives of georeferenced point records are seldom displayed
and
interactive
interplay
is
generally
limited:
see
Aqua
NIS
(www.corpi.ku.lt/databases/aquanis), DAISIE (https://www.gbif.org/dataset/39f36f10559b-427f-8c86- 2d28afff68ca), EASIN (https://easin.jrc.ec.europa.eu/)13, ESENIAS
(http://www.esenias.org/),
ELNAIS
(https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-andmaps/data/external/elnais-invasive-alien-species-data),
NOBANIS
(https://www.nobanis.org/),
MAMIAS
(http://www.mamias.org/),
(MedMIS.
http://www.iucn-medmis. org).
Here we introduce the ORMEF geoportal, an interactive website, which capitalizes a
comprehensive repository of georeferenced data published in the scientific literature
(Azzurro et al., 2021; Azzurro et al., 2022a). The aim of the ORMEF Geoportal is to
provide an easy to access system to explore exotic fish occurrences in the
Mediterranean Sea.
2nd Mediterranean Symposium on the Non-Indigenous Species (Genoa, Italy, 22-23 September 2022)
13