Garbary

AlgaeBase is a database in development since 1996 providing access to authoritative nomenclatural, distributional and descriptive accounts of over 121,000 species and infraspecific taxa of algae set in the context of a hierarchical classification in which each genus is described. The project has been funded through the Higher Education Authority, Department of Education and Science (Ireland), SeaweedAfrica Project (European Union) and industrial sponsors in France (Degussa) and Canada (Acadian Seaplants). In addition to the Director (M.D Guiry), there are currently two research assistants involved with management and data entry, and over a dozen scientists contributing to the project. The database currently consists of over 37,000 references that includes the complete contents of primary phycological journals in addition to taxonomic, ecological, physiological and biochemical references in current to classical literature with updates added on a weekly basis. The database is searchable at all taxonomic levels from species to phylum, and provides citations of original publications of all taxa. For any taxon, all subordinate taxa at the next lowest rank are indicated along with the number of species for each taxon. Within each genus the species and infraspecific taxa are listed along with the current taxonomic status of each name (i.e., current, synonym, uncertain, provisional). Thousands of images are provided that can be downloaded for non-commercial use, with copyright being retained by original contributors. AlgaeBase has been a highly successful project that has been searched an average of 10,000 times per day since January 2000.