Ocean Biogeographic Information System

OBIS contact information

The OBIS secretariat is hosted by Rutgers University, Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences. You'll find us on

71 Dudley Road
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
USA

Tel: +1 732 932 6555; Fax: +1 732 932 8578

Contact us by email through data@iobis.org, help@iobis.org or admin@iobis.org. Check here to see a list of people involved at the secretariat

OBIS organisation

OBIS was established by the Census of Marine Life program (www.coml.org). It is an evolving strategic alliance of people and organizations sharing a vision to make marine biogeographic data, from all over the world, freely available over the World Wide Web. It is not a project or program, and is not limited to data from CoML-related projects. Any organization, consortium, project or individual may contribute to OBIS. OBIS provides, on an ‘open access’ basis through the World Wide Web:

taxonomically and geographically resolved data on marine life and the ocean environment;
interoperability with similar databases;
software tools for data exploration and analysis.

OBIS was one of the earliest Associate Members of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (www.gbif.org) which publishes data on all species. OBIS is a very active participant in GBIF activities, and one of the largest publishers of data to GBIF, reflecting its role as a specialist network for marine species. GBIF recommends that marine data are first published through OBIS, because OBIS can add special value (e.g. depth) and will manage the subsequent publication of data through GBIF. This also avoids duplication of data being separately published to GBIF and OBIS.

Who can join OBIS?
How is OBIS governed?
What do all the acronyms mean?
Who has contributed to OBIS?
What were the origins of OBIS?
What has been published related to OBIS?
How do I cite this web page description of OBIS?
How can students use OBIS for learning?

Who can join OBIS?

Any organization, consortium, project or individual may contribute to OBIS. Contributions typically take the form of publishing data through OBIS, or providing software tools. The data may be published through an on-line connection from another database or be located on the OBIS server at a Regional OBIS Node or at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. To join OBIS contact the Chair of the OBIS International Committee or the Executive Director in the first instance. Technical aspects of connecting to the OBIS website will then be planned.

How is OBIS governed?

OBIS is managed by an International Committee with advice from the CoML Steering Committee. The Chair of the OBIS International Committee, Dr Mark J. Costello, was also the OBIS Executive Officer until 2007, when a full-time Executive Director was appointed, Dr Edward Vanden Berghe. An OBIS Governing Board will be established during 2008. This will replace some of the roles of the International Committee, and will work closely with the OBIS Managers Committee and Chairs of the OBIS Working Groups. The Executive Director reports to the International Committee (and in time to the Governing Board), coordinates OBIS activities, and manages the Secretariat and Portal. The Executive Committee is a sub-group of the International Committee (or Governing Board) and oversees implementation of activities between meetings.

What is the OBIS International Committee?
Who is on the OBIS International Committee?
What is the OBIS Science (Editorial) Board?
What is the OBIS Portal?
What are Regional OBIS Nodes (RON)?
What is the OBIS Managers Committee?
What was the OBIS Technical Committee?
What are OBIS Scientific Working Groups?

What is the OBIS International Committee?

The OBIS International Committee (IC) is composed of invited expert scientists. The IC decides OBIS policy and strategy. It actively fosters OBIS development through data sharing and exchange, making software available, and supervising the OBIS portal development. It may establish working groups, for example to deal with technical data management issues. The IC is responsible for ensuring that contributors have expertise in their field, and have taken reasonable steps to ensure the quality of their data and/or software.

Members of the IC are selected as individuals to represent the constituencies of OBIS, including data providers, software developers, and regions of the world. They bring their expertise, knowledge, and connections to OBIS, and it is anticipated that they would be in regular contact with people and organizations who are potential users of, and contributors to, OBIS. Members do not represent their institutions. The IC elects the OBIS Chair from its members.

Who is on the OBIS International Committee?

Dr Mark J. Costello (Chair OBIS International Committee), Leigh Marine Laboratory, University of Auckland, Warkworth, New Zealand
Dr Ann Bucklin,Department of Marine Sciences, Marine Sciences and Technology Center, University of Connecticut, Groton, Connecticut, USA
Dr Daphne G. Fautin, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA
Dr Patrick N. Halpin, Geospatial Analysis Program, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA
Dr Gary C.B. Poore, Museum Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Dr Tony Rees, Divisional Data Centre, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Marine Research, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Dr Karen Stocks, San Diego Supercomputer Center, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA

Ex officio

Dr Fábio Lang da Silveira (as Chair of the OBIS Manager's Committee), University of Sao Pãolo, Brazil
Dr Edward Vanden Berghe (Executive Director), Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA
Dr J. Frederick Grassle (Keeper of the Sloan Foundation grant & Chair CoML Scientific Steering Committee), Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

Former OBIS IC members were:

Dr Yunqing (Phoebe) Zhang (Portal Manager), Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA
Dr Vishwas Chavan, National Chemical Laboratory, India (now GBIF, Copenhagen)
Dr Neil Ashcroft, University of Hull, UK;
Dr Geoff Boxshall, The Natural History Museum, London, UK;
Dr Dennis P. Gordon, National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Wellington, New Zealand;
Ms Kim Finney, National Ocean Office, Hobart, Australia;
Dr Rainer Froese, Leibniz-Institut für Meereswissenschaften an der Universität Kiel, Kiel, Germany
Dr Yoshihisa Shirayama, Seto Marine Laboratory, Shirahama, Japan;
Dr John Wilkin, Rutgers - The State University of New Jersey, USA.

What is the OBIS Science (Editorial) Board?

The OBIS Science Board is analogous to the Editorial or Advisory Board of a science journal in that members play an important role as advisors, such as in ensuring quality in the data publication process. This is achieved through members recommending good quality datasets for publication, acting as ambassadors within their specialist community for data publication through OBIS, and providing feedback and suggestions for improvements to OBIS. Where Board members were the scientists responsible for datasets published through OBIS, they maintain a role in correcting any errors apparent in the data and providing additional information to data users when requested. Where Board members have special expertise in taxonomy, oceanography, ecology, or information technologies, they advise OBIS on how to improve its quality and functionality. Members also add authority to OBIS by virtue of their scientific reputations. Members are:

What is the OBIS Portal?

The OBIS portal is the software that enables data search and retrieval through www.iobis.org. It is physically located at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers – The State University of New Jersey.

What are Regional OBIS Nodes (RON)?

Regional OBIS Nodes (RONs) are organizations that have committed to a continued support of OBIS within a geographic and/or national region using resources they have obtained. This will include serving data online and developing a data provider and end-user community. Some RON will provide tools, different language versions of the OBIS website, and/or provide mirror sites for the OBIS portal.

What is the OBIS Managers Committee?

The OBIS MC is composed of the Manager of each Regional OBIS Node. Members include

What was the OBIS Technical Committee?

This committee was a sub-committee of the OBIS International Committee from 2001-2006. It focused in detail on technical issues and reported to the OBIS IC.

What are OBIS Scientific Working Groups?

Scientific Working Groups are small groups of one to four people who conduct a well-defined task for OBIS for a specific period. They replaced the former OBIS Technical Committee. Current groups are listed below. Additional groups to consider linking of OBIS to molecular data systems, and to develop Educational tutorials are under consideration.

Taxon names Working Group, Tony Rees (Chair), Gary Poore, Edward Vanden Berghe, Mark Costello. This develops the (a) informal hierarchy of taxonomic groups used on the OBIS portal to enable users to browse down to their group of interest, (b) a world list of marine genus names to enable OBIS to find data on marine species in other data sources (e.g. GBIF), (c) mechanisms for labelling species by items of interest (e.g. if invasive, threatened), and (d) coordinates with other initiatives to make an authoritative World Register of Marine Species names available to the scientific community and as a quality control service on the OBIS portal.

Visualisation tools Working Group, Bob Branton (Chair), Pat Halpin, Jerry Black, Dan Ricard. This group is developing tools to show on the OBIS portal (a) individual animal tracks as lines, (b) time series data, and (c) abundance and absence data.

Habitat classification Working Group, Mark Costello (Chair), Karen Stocks. This group is preparing approaches to enable OBIS data to be searched by habitats, including pre-defined geographic regions (e.g. sea areas), physiographically defined seascapes (e.g. seamounts), and biologically defined biotopes.

Fishery data Working Group, Bob Branton (Chair), Dan Ricard. This group is reviewing the needs of fishery scientists with a view to publishing additional types of data through OBIS, and/or alternative ways of expressing or displaying data.

Discovery Metadata Working Group, Bob Branton (Chair), Melanie Meaux. This group is implementing discovery metadata for all datasets published on OBIS in conjunction with the GCMD metadata portal. During 2005, this group defined the metadata fields required for OBIS and included Mark Costello (Chair), Melanie Meaux, Edward Vanden Berghe, David Watts, Klaas Deneudt, and Simon Claus.

Who has contributed to OBIS?

People, organizations and projects that provide data, software, expertise, or other resources to OBIS can be recognized as “Contributors to OBIS”.

People

In addition to people directly involved in OBIS and the Census of Marine Life, detailed user feedback was provided by students at the University of Auckland in 2005 (Alana Mary Alexander, Phillip Ian Baker, Jennifer Marie Blair, Bevan Ceran, Jennifer Elizabeth Davison, Catherine Anne De Silva, Sarah Victoria Hearne, Dianne Julie Hicks, Silje Hogner, Caroline Holt, Jacob Dylan Hore, Lee Jenks, Carl Johan Martin Karlsson, Inigo Macey Koefoed, Claudius Matthias Kroenke, Ta-Yuan Lee, Stefan Andreas Vallon Nord, Kylie Jane Park, Kirsten Jayne Redmond, Breeanne Louise Sandall, Kelly Joanne Siddle, Janice Mary Stanborough) and 2006 (Haman Amir-Shahpari, Brenda Fumiko Asuncion, Dane Attwood, Natalie Louise Beaton, Stephanie Jane Behrens, Dhruti Bell, Marie Alice Bjorland, Cara Ann Blomfield, Blair Alexander Cardno, Rohan Fernandes, Ola Mea Gausen, Nicola Claire Gearing, David Gray Clutten Gilbert, Kimberley Anita Greenwell, Liv Marie Gustavson, Hanna Habte Selassie, Oliver Desmond Hannaford, Sarah Kay Harrison, Tania Dianne Hurley, Nicola-Anne Hawkins Jack, Joann Elizabeth Kelly, Emma Gail Lucas, Jenna Lee Martin, Tristan McArley, Stephen Paul Gifford Moore, Quentin O'Brien, Shane Edward Oswald, Mate Ki Tawhiti Chloe Nadia Peni, Jia Ren, Ben Richter, Elizabeth Jane Ross, Sarah-Jayne Rynbeck, Andrea June Seymour, Jenni Anne Stanley, Katrina Lee Subedar, Linda Carina Jeanette (Jeanette) Svensson, Nicola Mary Tarbutt, Elis Carl Petter Tibblin, Kari Torp, Rebecca Katherine Trigg, Kelly Patrick Withers, and Amie Wolken).

Data Sources

OBIS Data Sources are the authors, editors, and/or organisations that have published one or more datasets through OBIS. They would be the owners or custodians of the data. The data are served through an OBIS Data Provider who may or may not be the same organization or person.

Data Providers

OBIS Data Providers are organizations and persons that serve data through the OBIS portal. These data maybe held by themselves or served on behalf of others.

Tool providers

OBIS Tools are software that operates through the OBIS portal (e.g. mapping tools), is used in OBIS data management, or that can be downloaded by users. Examples include: CMR C-squares Mapper; Kansas Geological Survey (KGS) Mapper; ACON Mapper; VLIZ maps of Countries (Exclusive Economic Zones), and of Sea and Ocean areas.

Partners

OBIS Partners are organisations with whom OBIS cooperates to mutually support each others goals and activities. They include: