in memoriam Daphne Fautin
 |
We are saddened to learn about the death of Dr Daphne Gail Fautin. Daphne was born on 25 May 1946 and passed away on 12 March 12 2021. Daphne was a founding member of the first international committee of OBIS and during the Census of Marine Life period, she was our liaison person with GBIF, while also being the vice-chair of the GBIF science committee. Daphne was also a leading advisor on taxonomic databases based on her world leading online information system on sea anemones: Hexacorallians of the World. This was supported as one the first projects of the Census of Marine Life. Comparable online systems of the time were FishBase and AlgaeBase. Hexacorallians of the World has now been absorbed into WoRMS and OBIS. |
In collaboration with her students and husband Bob Buddemeier Hexacorallians of the World was one of the first to map species and return statistics on their environmental niches. Early versions of OBIS included this mapping system. I recall that when we had Census of Marine Life and OBIS meeting’s she often took the opportunity to visit local museums to check the anemone species in their collections to make sure her database was as accurate as possible. Always friendly and hard-working, she was a world-leading taxonomist and a good friend to many.
Our thougths are with her husband Bob and her friends and family.
Picture source and credits: https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/jul/19/namecreating_game/
