Froese is best known for his work developing and maintaining
FishBase, a large and widely accessed online information system on fish.[3] From 1990 until 2000, Froese lead the development of
FishBase at
ICLARM in Manila. Since 2000, he has coordinated the large international consortium that now oversees FishBase.[4] Its searchable database contains 34,000 fish species and the site receives over 30 million views each month.[5] He is also the coordinator of
AquaMaps, which produces computer-generated global distribution maps for marine species,[6] and science adviser to
SeaLifeBase, which is an extension of FishBase to aquatic organisms other than fish.[7][8]
Froese has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific publications.[9] In 1998, along with
Daniel Pauly and others, Froese authored an influential paper called Fishing down marine food webs.[10] The paper examined the consequences of preferentially targeting large
predator fish over smaller
forage fish. As a result, the
fishing industry has been "
fishing down the food web", and the
mean trophic level in the oceans has progressively decreased. More recently, in a 2011 letter to Nature, he stated that the European
Common Fisheries Policy "consistently gets to overrule scientific advice and drive fish stocks to the brink of collapse. Without massive subsidies, European fisheries would be bankrupt: the cost of hunting the few remaining fish would exceed the income from selling the catch."[11]
Froese R, Bailly N, Coronado GU, Pruvost P, Reyes R and Hureau JC (1999)
"A new procedure to clean up fish collection databases" pp. 697–7. Proceedings of the 5th Indo-Pacific Fisheries Conference, Nouméa, New Caledonia, B Seret and JY Sire, Society of French Ichthyologists, Paris.
Froese R (1996)
"A data-rich approach to assess biodiversity" In: Biodiversity in Asia: challenges and opportunities for the scientific community, JA McNeely and S Somchevita (eds). Office of Environmental Policy and Planning, Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, Bangkok, pp. 127–136.