What is FishMAP
The Animal Demography Unit at the University of Cape Town has been capturing distribution data for many creatures in Southern Africa for almost a quarter of a century. The distribution and breeding data about each class of creature is captured by everyday
What is FishMAP
The Animal Demography Unit at the University of Cape Town has been capturing distribution data for many creatures in Southern Africa for almost a quarter of a century. The distribution and breeding data about each class of creature is captured by everyday citizens who are keen hobbyists in the subject being monitored. Currently ADU monitors Birds, Mammals, Reptiles, Frogs, Odonata (Dragonflies and Damselflies), Lacewings, Butterflies and Moths (Lepidoptera), Scorpions and Spiders. In the plant world Mushrooms, Orchids and Trees are mapped
.FishMAP is ADU’s newest project and encapsulates all Southern/Eastern African freshwater fish and this now brings all species of vertebrates into the ADU fold. A number of eminent scientists and fishermen across southern and eastern Africa have volunteered to sit on the panel of experts to ensure the correct identification of all records submitted and to help spread the word about FishMAP to all fishermen in Africa.
FishMAP is a collaborative project between the Animal Demography Unit (ADU), South African Institute for Biodiversity (SAIAB) and National Museums of Kenya (NMK). Each organisation is making a major contribution to the project. The FishMAP project is housed in ADU’s Virtual Museum suite of monitoring databases.
Some outstanding studies have in the past been conducted in specific biomes and river catchments but never has the complete picture been documented for the whole of southern and eastern Africa. The previous studies have each been a snapshot of the knowledge at a given moment in time. FishMAP will work like all of ADU’s Projects and capture all of the historic information into the system alongside the current records submitted to the virtual museum. A key element of ADU’s toolset is to bring the fourth dimension of time to science and distribution mapping. Capturing the historic data and adding the current records provides an ongoing view over the time period from the earliest studies through to the latest view of what is where. Within just a few years this combination and time spread will begin to show changes in distributions and the impact, or benefit, of factors 