Expanding OBIS beyond species occurrence data, with an extension for environmental data
Ward Appeltans1, Pieter Provoost1, Daphnis De Pooter2, Klaas Deneudt2, Philip Goldstein3, Gwenaelle Moncoiffe4, Shannon Rauch5, Stamatina Nikolopoulou6, Anton Van de Putte7, Leen Vandepitte2, Nina Wambiji8, Nicolas Bailly6, Alessandra Giorgetti9, Mirtha Lewis10, Marina Lipizer9, Kevin Mackay11, Andres Roubicek12, Carlos Torres13, Taco De Bruin14 and Francisco Javier Hernandez2, (1)UNESCO, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, Oostende, Belgium, (2)Flanders Marine Institute, Oostende, Belgium, (3)Univ of Colorado, Broomfield, CO, United States, (4)British Oceanographic Data Centre, Liverpool, United Kingdom, (5)Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, United States, (6)Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture, Heraklion, Greece, (7)Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium, (8)Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, Mombasa, Kenya, (9)Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale Trieste, Trieste, Italy, (10)Centro Nacional Patagónico-CONICET, Puerto Madryn, Argentina, (11)National Institute for Water & Atmospheric Research, Wellington, New Zealand, (12)CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship, Hobart, Australia, (13)Universidad Autonoma de Baja California, Instituto de Investigaciones Oceanologicas, Ensenada, Mexico, (14)NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, National Marine Facilities (NMF), Den Burg, Netherlands
Abstract:
The data collected for biological studies often include more than just biological parameters. Also observations on the habitat and additional physical and chemical measurements are collected to study the organisms in their environment, as may be details regarding the nature of the sampling or observation methods, equipment, and effort. These combined data are needed for the analysis of ecosystem functioning, ecological niche modelling, climate change, etc. However, scientists currently lack internationally agreed standards for managing and sharing these mixed datasets with their peers. If, at best, the data are not lost, the biological observations get often split from the physicochemical data and sent to different data repositories.
In March 2015, the International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) Committee of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission has established a 2-year pilot project, involving 11 institutions from 10 countries in North-America, South-America, Europe, Africa and Australia. This project aims to develop procedures and guidelines for managing and sharing these mixed datasets, making sure that supporting measurements are curated and distributed alongside the species occurrence data. Moreover, it will investigate how these mixed datasets can flow to national, regional and global data repositories. Eventually, it will demonstrate the benefits of the approach for marine sciences, biological analysis and ecosystem modelling and will support the reproducibility of research.
Here we will present a few case studies dealing with e.g. benthos and phytoplankton abundance and biomass data including sediment characteristics, water turbidity, temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen, as well as biometric data and tracks of marine mammals holding CTD devices.
