Introduction

Colombia is the northernmost country in South America. Its position in the north-western corner of the continent gives it access to both the Caribbean Sea (part of the Atlantic Ocean) and the Pacific Ocean. The country's maritime area spans an expanse of 928,600 km², accounting for 45% of its total area. This encompasses territorial waters and a 2,900 km coastline, with 1,600 km situated along the Caribbean coast and 1,300 km along the Pacific coast. The marine area extends from the coast to depths of more than 4000 m, and encompasses a variety of geographical features, including islands, islets, cays, banks, headlands, the seabed and subsoil, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone up to 200 miles, as well as the adjacent airspace. Colombia shares maritime borders with eight countries in the Caribbean (Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela) and with Ecuador, Panama and Costa Rica in the Pacific.

The contrasting characteristics exhibited by the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean in Colombia are profoundly defined by tropical atmospheric circulation, oceanographic dynamics, geology, and the interaction between the ocean and the continent. A variety of distinctive features give rise to a variety of marine and coastal environments. These include coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds, estuaries, rocky reefs, soft bottoms, canyons, seamounts, ocean basins, cold seeps, hydrothermal vents and areas of high fishing productivity. These ecosystems and habitats are home to a great deal of biodiversity and are of great strategic importance. This is because they provide environmental goods and services that are relevant to coastal protection, regional climate regulation, the economy and the sustainability of fisheries in local communities. In this context, it is essential for the sustainable management of resources to increase and make visible the knowledge of the country's marine biodiversity, which is recognised as one of the highest on the continent, in one of the world's megadiverse countries.

Colombia Register of Marine Species (CoRMS)

CoRMS was created to strengthen the availability of lists of marine species present in Colombian territory based on high-quality data. This will make them more visible and encourage their use in research, management and biodiversity conservation. Colombian Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean taxa are present in CoRMS, which contains detailed records of their distribution. It is based on the compilation and verification of local records of marine species reported in peer-reviewed scientific literature and national taxonomic reference lists endorsed by experts. Data from natural history collection records and the Biodiversity Information Systems (i.e. OBIS, Genbank, Boldsystem) can also be added to the database, provided that each species record is supported by a scientific publication. CoRMS does not include species records reported in grey literature, such as theses, technical reports, event abstracts, newsletters or working papers.

CoRMS is a thematic portal of the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) that contains the most comprehensive and authoritative list of marine organism names. The WoRMS website (www.marinespecies.org) is the resource for users looking to search for taxonomic information or the global distribution of specific taxa. The intention of CoRMS is not to duplicate the work of WoRMS, neither is designed to track changes in taxonomy either. Each record in CoRMS contains a standard code that enables linkage to WoRMS's master databases (AphiaID and the Integrated Taxonomic Information System - ITIS TSN). Issues related to synonym, validity and taxonomic hierarchy will be dealt with by WoRMS.

CoRMS is managed by INVEMAR (the Institute of Marine and Coastal Research ‘José Benito Vives de Andrés’), the Colombian entity responsible for conducting marine scientific research, which is officially linked to the Ministry of Environment and Territorial Development. The CoRMS website is hosted by the Flanders Marine Institute in Belgium (VLIZ), which provides the query tools available on the site and also offers support for CoRMS data management.

About CoRMS logo

Victor Blanco Pineda designed the site’s visual concept and the CoRMS logo, incorporating ideas from Erika Montoya, Cristina Cedeño, and Martha Vides.

The first two letters of the acronym ‘CoRMS’ stand for the official code assigned to Colombia (CO), the blue tones represent the ocean, and the three-color stripe stands for the colors and proportions of the Colombian flag. The graphic representation of the species that replaces the letter ‘o’ was inspired by a scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of a Copulabyssia colombia specimen, a tiny deep-sea limpet discovered and named in honor of Colombia by researchers Néstor E. Ardila and M. George Harasewych in 2005.

This species belongs to the gastropod molluscs, one of the most abundant and diverse groups of marine invertebrates in the ocean. Although they have been extensively studied, they continue to surprise us because new species are still being described regularly. The image of C. colombia resembles a fingerprint and symbolizes the great potential of marine species yet to be discovered and recorded in the country, and the importance of making this information visible. For CoRMS, it is more about recognizing the knowledge that has a tangible impact and leaves a lasting impression.