An Interactive Database on Australian Stream Fishes for Use by Environmental Groups and Educators

Compared to the monitoring of water quality and macroinvertebrates, relatively little attention has been directed towards community-based fish monitoring. However, fish studies are important since fish play a pivotal role in freshwater food webs and fish data provide the basis of several routinely-used indicators of stream health. Fish also have very strong public appeal and play a significant role in attracting community members to environmental groups. As a prerequisite for locally-based stream management and education, there is a need for a standardised system for the collection and application of data on fish and fish habitats that can be used by community groups. Collaboration between the Freshwater Ecology Group (U.Q.) and Waterwatch (Qld.) has resulted in the development of standardised fish sampling protocols and their successful adoption by several local community groups in south-east Queensland. The protocols have been in use since 2000. Annual “fish snapshots’ are carried out in March every year, with additional sampling at other times by some groups. In consequence there is now a framework in place for the long term community-based monitoring of fish diversity, abundance, distribution and habitat quality. What is now needed is the creation of a publicly accessible data management system for fish/habitat data entry and the flexible retrieval of relevant information – for example, maps of the distribution of particular species over various spatial scales, summaries of changing fish abundance over time, and plots of the occurrence of fish species in different types of stream habitats. An interactive website provides an ideal platform for such activities, and can be designed to include dynamic displays, attractive interpretative graphics and ancillary information such as photographic keys to local fish species. Appropriate safeguards to maintain data security can also be incorporated into the system. The website would constitute a unique resource for increasing public awareness and education, and facilitate involvement in stream management activities by community members and special interest groups. It would act as a repository of local knowledge on stream fish and provide a national framework for the sharing and pooling information between groups and regions. Discussions on website designs and the possible national standardisation of fish sampling protocols are invited.