DETTAI, A.; LECOINTRE, G.; MNHN, Paris; MNHN, Paris: MetAcanthomorpha, a phylogeny-oriented database for acanthomorph morphology

Acanthomorpha (Teleostei) is a wide clade currently divided in 329 families (for about 15 000 species). Relationships within acanthomorphs are not fully resolved, despite the fact that a great amount of morphological and molecular data has already been published, however in the current state of the art, it is close to impossible to make a consistent synthesis or a wide scale comparison, because of the dispersion and very important heterogeneity of the informations. The group is so huge that in some cases, specialists can mutually ignore that they have observed the same character state in their respective groups. We are currently working on a database enabling a global intersection of all the data (in a matrix form) and render with some detail all the hypothesis and debates about topographical and character state identity, while allowing to trace the origin and authors of all the information. The database will be linked to the already existing databases (for nomenclature, specimen information…), to avoid information redundancy. The database will ultimately be web-based and cooperative (with entry of data restricted to competent professionals and students).