World Database of Nematodes

Linked to the Marine Biology Section, UGent

Introduction

Nematodes are one of the most numerous and widespread groups of animals, marine substrates, fresh water, soil or living as parasites of animals and plants. Despite their simple body plan, nematodes can adapt to a wide range of conditions and habitats. Although nematodes look similar to the untrained eye, their morphology is very diverse, which reflects the wide range of niches they occupy.

De Ley & Blaxter (2002, 2004) introduced a classification of the Nematoda largely based on molecular data (SSU rDNA) but also including morphological, ontogenetic and biological characters. We adopt this classification, together with the overview of families and genera found in The Handbook of Zoology – Volume Nematoda (Schmidt-Rhaesa, 2014).

Nemys offers documentation on free-living marine, brackish, fresh-water and terrestrial nematodes, mainly providing taxonomic information but also ecological information. Primary taxonomic literature can be consulted by registered users.

The website is integrated into the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) hosted at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), and managed by an international team of taxonomic editors with the help of the WoRMS – Aphia data management team.

Nemys remains a work in progress! Taxonomic lists and/or status of taxa need to be checked by the users with the most recent primary literature.

In order to help us improve the database, we encourage users to provide their feedback or queries directly to the editors who will be happy to help.

News

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Today - 19 March - is the Taxonomist Appreciation Day

Added on: 2024-03-19 09:45:35 by Bezerra, Tânia Nara
"Taxonomy is critical for almost everything we do in biology, but few demonstrate appreciation for the hard work and expertise that is required for useful taxonomy to happen. Let’s change that!" ...

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Background and evolution

  • 80’s – Difficulties with identification and access to literature, without internet, led to the necessity of creating a compilation of dedicated information. An extensive work reuniting copies of parts of taxonomical literature was initiated by Nic Smol, followed by other contributors working in the Marine Biology Research Group. The files formed the species library, an ongoing work called -– “Nematotheek”.
  • 1999 – Following previous discussions, a generic system for storage of relevant information on “species” was built by Tim Deprez to host Nematodes, Mysida, Amphibians and Pepperonia – NeMys
  • 2004 – Intensive scanning work done by Gustavo Fonseca and Tania Nara Bezerra, made the files on nematodes species stored at the Marine Biology Research Group available on line.
  • 2005 onwards – Data on free-living marine nematodes were added to NeMys by collaborators of the Marine Biology Research Group of Ghent University through a series of projects funded by OSTC (now: Belspo) and voluntary work. Yearly updates were done with work of the MarBiol’ nematologists – “NeMys Task Force”. These projects include:
  • 2009 – System crashed – the storage system was not prepared for the amount of information that ended up there. The problem was fixed.
  • 2010 – After the crashing followed by the data recovering, the software was “hacked” and NeMys had to go offline – lot of information was lost (PDF’s, methodology protocols, images, keys, distribution…).
  • 2013 – October – November: Jan Vanaverbeke from the Marine Biology research group, had first discussions over the possibility to transfer Nemys to Aphia database at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) as part of WoRMS database.
  • 2014 – January – February: begin of transfer: NeMys database moved to VLIZ – WoRMS – Aphia Data Management Team.
  • 2014 – March – August: transfer of all NeMys data to Aphia + quality control.
  • 2014 – September – December: development of interface, similar to ‘old’ NeMys interface; implementation of identification keys; set-up of login system to allow access to all publications; communication on NeMys transfer; building a NeMys editor network + first thoughts about the first workshop.
  • 2015 – 24-26th February: First NeMys editors workshop in Oostende. [report]
  • 2015 – November: Katja Guilini became chief editor, replacing Jan Vanaverbeke.
  • 2016 – July: During the Meiofauna Conference in Crete an informal reunion with the editors gave the opportunity to discuss some issues.
  • 2018 – January: Katja Guilini passed on her chief editor responsibilities to Ann Vanreusel and Tânia Nara Bezerra.
  • 2018 – 5th-7th September: Second Nemys editors workshop in Ghent. [report]
  • 2021 – 28th July: Third Nemys editors workshop online [report].
  • 2022 – 21-25th February: LifeWatch-WoRMS Nematoda Editor Workshop online [report].
  • 2022 – 8th June: Nemys meeting online [report].
  • 2022 – 24th October: Nemys meeting online [report].
  • 2023 – 18th April: Nemys meeting online [report].

References

Ahmad W. & Jairajpuri M.S. 2010. Mononchida: the predatory soil nematodes. Brill: 298 pp.
Appeltans W. et al. (2012) The Magnitude of Global Marine Species Diversity. Current Biology 22: 2189-2202.
Chitwood B.G. & Chitwood M.B. (1974) Introduction to Nematology. University Park Press: 334 pp.
Eyualem-Abebe, Andrássy I & Traunspurger W (2006) Freshwater nematodes: ecology and taxonomy. CABI Publishing: 752 pp.
Geraert E. 2008. The Tylenchidae of the World. Identification of the family Tylenchidae (Nematoda). Academia Press: 540 pp.
Geraert E. 2010. The Criconematidae of the World. Identification of the family Criconematidae (Nematoda). Academia Press: 615 pp.
Geraert E. 2011. The Dolichodoridae of the World. Identification of the family Dolichodoridae. Academia Press: 520 pp.
Geraert E. 2013. The Pratylenchidae of the World. Identification of the Famiy Pratylenchidae (Nematoda: Pratylenchidae). Academia Press: 430 pp.
Ghaderi R., Geraert E. & Karegar A. 2015. The Tylenchulidae of the World. Identification of the Family Tylenchulidae. Academia Press: 453 pp.
Malakhov V.V. (1994) Nematodes: Structure, Development, Classification and Phylogeny. Smithsonian Institution Press: 286 pp.
Miljutin D.M. et al. (2010) The state of knowledge on deep-sea nematode taxonomy: how many valid species are known down there? Marine Biodiversity 40: 143-159.
Platt H.M. & Warwick R.M. (1983) Free-living marine nematodes. Part I British Enoplids. Synopses of the British Fauna (New Series) No 28: 307 pp.
Platt H.M. & Warwick R.M. (1988) Free-living marine nematodes. Part II British Chromadorids. Synopsis of the British fauna (New series) No 38: 502 pp.
Schmidt-Rhaesa A. (2014) Handbook of zoology. Gastrotricha, Cycloneuralia and Gnathifera. Volume 2. Nematoda. De Gruyter: 759pp.
Siddiqi M.R. (2000) Tylenchida: parasites of plants and insects. CABI Publishing: 833 pp.
Subbotin S.A., Mundo-Ocampo M. & Baldwin J. 2010. Systematics of Cyst Nematodes (Nematoda: Heteroderinae). Brill: 352+512 pp.
Warwick R.M., Platt H.M. & Somerfield P.J. (1998) Free-living marine nematodes. Part III Monhysterids. Synopsis of the British fauna (New series) No 53: 296 pp.
   

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Citation

Usage of data from the World Database of Nematodes in scientific publications should be acknowledged by citing as follows:

  • Nemys eds. (2024). Nemys: World Database of Nematodes. Accessed at https://nemys.ugent.be on 2024-03-19. doi:10.14284/366
If the data from the World Database of Nematodes constitute a substantial proportion of the records used in analyses, the chief editor(s) of the database should be contacted. There may be additional data which may prove valuable to such analyses.

Individual pages are individually authored and dated. These can be cited separately: the proper citation is provided at the bottom of each page.

How to cite data in Nemys:

To give due credit to the original authors, please cite data taken from Nemys by the datasource reference of each respective record.
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Web interface and database structure initially created by Tim Deprez; now hosted and maintained by VLIZ
Page generated 2024-03-19 · contact: Tânia Nara Bezerra or info@marinespecies.org