Species lists, or registers, are the starting point for marine biodiversity research and management. This site is the only source attempting to describe the species biodiversity of the northwest North Atlantic Ocean.

Each register includes diatoms, dinoflagellates, marine algae, protists, most invertebrate groups, fishes, shore birds, reptiles, and marine mammals. The scientific names and classification of species have been standardized following these sources: marine algae, with the exception of dinoflagellates, diatoms, and blue-green algae — Sears, 1998; protists, dinoflagellates, diatoms, invertebrates, shore birds, reptiles and marine mammals — Integrated Taxonomic Information system (ITIS); fishes — FishBase (Froese and Pauly (eds) 2004). Certain species in the literature are not included in these sources, in which case the taxonomy was taken from a congener when available. When the information for a congener was unavailable, the lowest taxon above genus given in the original publication was used, and this and higher taxonomic levels followed the sources above.

In addition to taxonomy the registers provide for each species the scientific authority, synonyms (those found in the sources used for this project, which may not be inclusive), common names, ITIS Taxonomic Serial Number, whether reviewed by ITIS, whether included in ITIS, range and concentrations (chiefly those in Atlantic waters), habitat, mode of life describing whether a fish species is planktonic, nektonic, benthic, or restricted to the intertidal zone, and references cited. Registers based on the Bay of Fundy site have retained the following information for species from that list: occurrence (rare, common or abundant in the Bay of Fundy), conservation status using sources from FishBase, CITES, COSEWIC, IUCN, and UNCLOS, habitat, ARC museum catalogue number(s), locality of the ARC specimen, dimensions (size) of the species, reproduction (preferred method, sometimes breeding areas), diet, predators, and importance to humans. There are also comments for important information otherwise not included.

This site was developed by The Atlantic Reference Centre (ARC), a department of the Huntsman Marine Science Centre and a research museum of Canadian Atlantic marine life (see Contact Us, Acknowledgements, How to Cite). The North Atlantic Register of Marine Species, a collaborative project between the ARC and the Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee, is designed to facilitate comparisons of biodiversity between the northeast and northwest North Atlantic. That site is a work in progress.