Joseph POUPIN is a French marine biologist. He has obtained is PhD in 1985, University of Brest and his HDR in 2004, University of Perpignan. After is PhD, he has also briefly specialized in computer science, University of Rennes I, France. During 25 years he has published in several fields of marine biology: ecology of marine mammals, fish physiology, fish population dynamics, and systematic of tropical Crustacea. This last field is currently the core of his scientific production with focus on systematic and biogeography of Decapoda in Pacific Islands. He is currently a teacher at the French Navy School, Brest, and member of the Institut de Recherche de l'Ecole Naval (IRENav), GIS research team. His research projects are oriented towards databases and GIS applications for study of marine biodiversity in Pacific Islands. see database project at: http://decapoda.free.fr/