Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Arizona
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Recently, the American Fisheries Society developed standard methods to sample freshwater fish populations, publishing them in 2009 in the book “Standard Methods for Sampling North American Freshwater Fishes”. This project involved 284 scientists from 107 different organizations across Canada, Mexico and the United States. Data collected using standard methods gives biologists the ability to compare data across regions or time. An on-line web-accessible database program to compare fish growth, condition, length-frequency, and catch per unit effort data collected using AFS standard methods was developed. Development of this database is a collaborative effort among AFS, the US Geological Survey, the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the University of Arizona, the University of Guadalajara, and a variety of other contributors. The database (1) provides on-line summaries of more than 4000 data sets of condition, length-frequency, CPUE and growth indices of common freshwater fishes, collected using standard gears from 42 states and provinces across North America; (2) allows easy entry of new data collected using standardized methods, so averages of commonly-used fishery indices can be updated; and (3) allows users to compare condition, growth and abundance of fish collected in a particular waterbody with regional (continent, ecoregion and state) and rangewide averages and percentiles, thus increasing resource information in a variety of areas. The database is programmed in a PHP-based Drupal framework and is in the pre-release testing stage. Please visit http://fisheriesstandardsampling.org for further information. The site is fully functional. An article describing the program was published in 2015 in Fisheries.