Updating of the Carta Piscícola Española and Assessment of the State of the Conservation Status of Threatened Spanish Fishes ^†

Abstract

The Carta Piscícola Española (CPE) is currently the most extensive inventory of freshwater fish fauna in Spain. It is also a tool for knowledge management and outreach. Over the last three years, more than 4800 users from 73 countries have visited the CPE more than nine million times, consolidating this web as the primary source for the public interested in Spanish freshwater fishes. The CPE was first launched in 2014 and currently gives access to more than 40,000 records of 84 fish species in Spain. Conceived as a long-term project, the CPE needs to grow to keep on providing the same services while developing new ones. To this end, the SIBIC started the project “Update of the national inventory and evaluation of the conservation status of Iberian fish” in 2021. The aim of the project was threefold: (1) assess the conservation status of freshwater fish in the Iberian Peninsula, (2) update the CPE with new records, and (3) build Species Distribution Models (SDMs) of the fish species of the Iberian Peninsula. In this communication, we summarize the goals met in the project. Firstly, we have assessed the state of conservation of eleven freshwater fish species with the aim to propose their inclusion in the Spanish Catalogue of Threatened Species (CEEA). To date, we have indexed more than 40,000 new records of 89 fish species in the CPE, mainly coming from well-structured fish monitoring networks with solid protocols. Finally, we have built SDMs for 54 freshwater fish species, that will be included as an accessible resource on the webpage of the CPE. The CPE is an open project that benefits from the contribution of different sources while recognizing this contribution by a traceable citation. We invite the community of ichthyologists to support the CPE and enrich it by sharing fish records and spreading the word.