Many applications require a list of species that are likely to be found in the marine waters around Britain and Ireland and the adjacent seas. This list can be used for this purpose and furthermore, if used widely will improve the ability to exchange species data between applications. The marine area covered by this list is shown below. The boundaries given in the map are recognized not to represent true boundaries of species distributions, nor infer ownership of any water body however the boundaries do allow operational use of a taxon list.

To download the full list, carry out a search and then click ‘download results’ in the result window.

This list started as a geographic subset of taxa from the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) that were originally identified through data holdings of the applications Marine Recorder and Unicorn and collated under the project ‘Pan-European Species directories Infrastructure (PESI)’. The MSBIAS list is now actively maintained through the UK MEDIN partnership to reflect those species present in the waters of the British Isles and adjacent seas.