Mundus maris met Alice Vandommele in the occasion of the FishBase-SeaLifeBase Symposium that took place on 2 and 3 September 2025 in the premises of the Natural History Museum in Brussels. She, along with several others, is part of the team that manages Abc Taxa, the Journal Dedicated to Capacity Building in Taxonomy and Collection Management, a great resource for anybody interested in learning more about biodiversity in different parts of the world and how to document and protect a wide range of aquatic and terrestrial species.

Q: Alice, thanks for drawing our attention to this interesting collection. Can you please explain the rationale of the Journal and who supports it?

The first publication in the series was about holothurians in the Comoros Islands, Indian Ocean

A: The Abc Taxa book series is part of the broader Global Taxonomic Initiative (GTI), for which the national focal point for Belgium is housed at CEBioS in the Royal Belgian Institute of National Sciences, and the series is made in collaboration with the AfricaMuseum and Meise Botanic Garden. The aim of the GTI is to promote taxonomic knowledge both through direct support and through capacity building. We found that a big issue in this regard was that taxonomic training and expertise was often inaccessible, requiring enrolment in the right programmes and knowing the right people to learn from. Thus, Abc Taxa was conceived as a way of disseminating taxonomic knowledge to interested parties in a way that was faster and at a lower cost of entry.

Q: How do you select the topics and what taxonomic guides on aquatic species have you published so far?

A: Abc Taxa is very much author-driven. Although we might contact specific experts we work together with on other projects to see if they would be interested in publishing a volume, we ultimately rely on authors to express their interest. Anyone can submit a proposal for a book according to the guidelines on our website and we welcome proposals on all sorts of taxa, whether plants, animals or fungi.

So far we've published 24 volumes, of which 8 concern aquatic species. Most recently, we published two volumes, one in English and one in Spanish, on Peruvian sponges by Philippe Willenz and Eduardo Hajdu. We certainly remain open to publishing more in this area in the future.

Q: Who are your readers and users? How do they access the Journal issues?

A: Our primary audience is, predictably, taxonomic researchers, especially students in the course of their graduate studies who are working around the taxa in question. We also receive demands from University Libraries from time to time to request particular volumes, something which we very much encourage.

All volumes are available in pdf format on our website. There is also the option to request physical copies via mail there. We send these for free to interested parties in developing countries, and at shipping cost to those in developed countries. Of course, anyone who is in Brussels is free to request a copy to pick up at the Institute itself.

Q: What are your plans for the future? What is your greatest wish in this respect?

A: Our big hope right now is to make the series better known and benefit even more people in the future. With 24 volumes we already have a sizeable collection of taxonomic data, with more to be added in the future, but we've noticed that the series is often still little-known, especially outside the circle of those we work with on other projects. We very much want to encourage awareness of our existence and the use of the resources we offer. So our ideal future would be one where we not only have a larger library of available volumes, but also one where we're a regular port-of-call for anyone seeking specialised knowledge on the taxa we've covered in that library!

Alice Vandommele showing two copies of the ABC Taxa publication, the first and currently last in the series

Thanks very much for sharing this useful information. As taxonomic expertise is scant almost everywhere while biodiversity is threatened in the ocean and freshwaters alike, it is good to know that you provide these capacity building resources as a contribution to increase knowledge and competencies for responsible and well-informed action.

Indeed, the ABC Taxa chief scientist, Dr. Yves Samyn of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) underscored the critical importance of biodiversity identification capacity strengthening during a flash talk on the second day of the FishBase-SeaLifeBase Symposium. He cited the late E.O. Wilson's statement in 2003 "Countries accounting for 80% of the named species have only 6% of the world's specialists." The implication is clear: if you can't name and study your biodiversity, you will have difficulties protecting this natural wealth and drawing full benefits from it. Teaming up with Indigenous Peoples and other traditional knowledge holders with a track record in conservation and responsible resource use should be the default for addressing the identified limitations.