News
14 July 2008
New data on the OBIS portal
Five new datasets are now available through the international OBIS portal:
- Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB), 3409 records
- Benthic species of New Caledonia, 55330 records
- Cold water corals, 6553 records
- Intertidal Biodiversity in the Gulf of Maine, 255 records
- Aerial surveyof the upper trophic level predators on Platts Bank, Gulf of Maine, 961 records
4 July 2008
WoRMS in the news
The press realease issued after the WoRMS workshop has been a hit, with many media taking it up. The news release resulted in at least 21 stories in 9 languages distributed by 14 newswires, which have now been captured from more than 275 media websites across 27 countries. More details, and some of the stories, are available through the Census web site.
1 July 2008
New portal manager joins iOBIS staff
Hassan Moustahfid, formerly from the Fisheries Department of NOAA, joins the staff at the OBIS secretariat as the new portal manager. He will be taking over the tasks from Phoebe Zhang. Hassan has plenty of experience in data management and analysis, and in ecosystem modeling for fisheries. His skills are a very good addition to the expertise presently available at iOBIS. We look forward to work together with Hassan.
22 June 2008
WoRMS Taxonomic editors workshop held in Oostende, Belgium
Marking the World Register's official inauguration, some 55 researchers from 17 countries met in Oostende, Belgium on 20 and 21 June to plan its completion by 2010. Leading World Register experts independently estimate that about 230,000 marine species are known to science. They also believe there are three times as many unknown (unnamed) marine species as known, for a grand total on Earth that could surpass 1 million.
The register, initiated by the European Node of OBIS, is soon to become the official taxonomic reference list for OBIS.
19 May 2008
New data available through the iOBIS portal
Seven new datasets were made available on the iOBIS portal today:
- WA Museum Ningaloo Mollusca database (via OBIS Australia), 766 records
- WA Museum Ningaloo Crustacea database (via OBIS Australia), 918 records
- WA Museum Ningaloo Marine Invertebrate Zoology database (via OBIS Australia), 1,942 records
- Marine Geoscience Data System (MGDS), 979 records
- Pacific Shrimp Trawl Survey (OBIS Canada), 128,809 records
- DFO Maritimes Research Vessel Trawl Surveys Invertebrate Observations (OBIS Cananda), 11,888 records
- Copepods of the Equatorial Eastern Pacific (Tropical and Subtropical Eastern South Pacific OBIS), 260 records
This leaves us at just under 14 million distribution records. We hope to make it to the full 14m by next month!
15 May 2008
Data managers join OBIS team
Two data managers have joined the iOBIS team: Alena Hornakova and Jessie Bluvias. Both have a background in environmental sciences, and have quite a bit of experience in GIS. They will be working on quality control of the present OBIS data, in close collaboration with the data providers. Very soon they will also be responsible to connect new datasets, and will be the main point of contact at the OBIS secretariat for data providers.
5 May 2008
New technical developments at OBIS
Chris Condit of the San Diego Supercomputer Centre (SDSC) has spent two weeks at the OBIS Secretariat to pilot some of the technologies that were discussed during the OBIS Technology workshop. He was able to port all the data from Oracle to PostGreSQL, and make use of the spatial extensions to perform spatial queries. The data is available through GeoServer on a demonstrator server, which also includes a demo web site. All these developments will be documented on the main web site soon.
30 April 2008
First meeting of the OBIS Governing Board
The first meeting of the Governing Board of OBIS was held in the FAO headquarters in Rome. Members of this board are Serge Garcia (ex-FAO), Patricio Bernal (IOC), Dan Laffoley (IUCN) and Jim Baker (ex-NOAA, and unfortunately could not attend the meeting). Ex officio participants were Fred Grassle (principal investigator on the Sloan Foundation grant), Fabio Lang da Silveira (Chair of the Managers Committee of OBIS), Mark Costello (Outgoing chair of the International Committee of OBIS) and Edward Vanden Berghe (Executive Director of OBIS). The main point on the agenda was governance of OBIS, including how to achieve a structure that will make OBIS sustainable beyond 2010, when the support of the Sloan Foundation will no longer be available.
23 April 2008
Nomina II
Taxonomic names, and reference lists to standardise their use, are an essential part of the vocabulary we use. David (Paddy) Patterson, responsible for technology development for the Encyclopedia of Life, and David Remsen of GBIF, jointly organised a global meeting to discuss collaboration across a wide range of projects to create a 'Global Names Architecture (GNA)'. WoRMS and OBIS were present during the meeting, and will contribute to a first concrete activity: the creation of a Global Names Index, a central piece of the GNA.
20 April 2008
OBIS Technology Workshop
Many of the decisions on technology behind OBIS were taken well over five years ago. High time for a new look at the technology, and to evaluate whether the choices which were optimal when OBIS just started are still the best choices now. A group of experts was invited to the OBIS secretariat in Rutgers; participants were from several OBIS RONs, from GBIF Secretariat, from the San Diego Supercomputer Centre and from the Open Plan Project. We agreed to investigate a completely new set of tools: PostGreSQL, PostGIS, GeoServer, OpenLayers and PHP. Very soon we should be in a position to evaluate what it would take to move to this new technology. The meeting was a very succesful one, and several participants have agreed to comit time to the action points from the meeting. It's very well possible that you'll see a completely new OBIS web site very soon!
11 April 2008
Biodiversity Observation Network
The Group on Earth Observations has a “Biodiversity Observation Network” (GEO-BON) task that OBIS will be an important contributor to. GEO-BON held it first open workshop in Berlin 8-10 April 2008. Dr Mark Costello (Chair OBIS International Committee 2000-2008, University of Auckland) is a member of its steering committee. GEO plans to have a Global Earth Observation System or Systems operational by 2015, largely through connecting and integrating a distributed system of infrastructures (including OBIS). Dr Costello is also contributing to the GEO Ecosystems Task through assisting the development of a global marine habitat classification. The Census of Marine Life and OBIS were mentioned in the first GEO work-plan. To date, 71 countries and over 40 organisations support GEO. By supporting OBIS, these countries and organisations will also be supporting the creation of GEOSS.
5 April 2008
Species 2000 Team meeting in China
Species 2000 International Team met in China from 3 to 5 April. Since the previous Species 2000 meeting, in Auckland, New Zealand, the World Register of Marine Species, WoRMS (http://www.marinespecies.org) is recognised as an important partner, and as a mechanism to support the marine taxonomic community in contributing to the Catalogue of Life. Ward Appeltans, manager of EurOBIS and member of the WoRMS organising committee was present at the meeting.
28 March 2008
CoML and OBIS on CNN
Dr Pat Halpin (Member OBIS International Committee; Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab at Duke University) appeared on CNN explaining the importance of CoML's Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS). OBIS is a useful tool for mapping the locations of all species, but particularly helpful in providing information on endangered species. He noted that OBIS, which has allowed for mapping in both space and time, has helped researchers find emerging patterns in species distributions. To view the entire CNN interview, please visit the CoML Maps website at http://comlmaps.org/video
11 March 2008
POST visits OBIS
Jose Gimenez of the POST project visited the OBIS secretariat at Rutgers, to discuss technical aspects of the POST data contribution to OBIS. We're hoping that very soon the POST data will be regularly updated on OBIS
9 March 2008
OBIS presented at the Ocean Sciences meeting in Orlando, Florida
The 2008 Ocean Sciences meeeting was held from 3 to 7 March in Orlando Florida. OBIS was presented by Edward Vanden Berghe. Click here to download a copy of the Powerpoint presentation
8 March 2008
New jump-off page with agreement between USP and PETROBRAS
OBIS Brazil: Tropical and Subtropical Western South Atlantic (WSAOBIS) has launched its new jump-off page (http://obisbr.cria.org.br/) to facilitate the understanding by Portuguese speaking end users and prospective new dataset contributors the nature of search in OBIS Portal and the visualization tools. The main funding sponsor has been credited by use of its logo on voluntary decision by the RON managers.
3 March 2008
7th meeting of the Managers Committee
The Regional Nodes of the Ocean Biogeographic Information System met at IMCS on the last two days of February. Information technology experts from 14 countries made plans for participating in the synthesis phase of the Census of Marine Life in 2010 and development of new sources of support beyond 2010.
30 January 2008
Biodiversity Collections Index holds kick-off meeting
The Biodiversity Collections Index (BCI, http://www.biodiversitycollectionsindex.org) aims to facilitate the understanding, conservation and utilisation of global biodiversity by creating a single annotated index of all collections of biodiversity materials used in research. The kick-off meeting was held in Washington on 28 and 29 January 2008; minutes of this meeting are avalable on http://wiki.tdwg.org/twiki/bin/view/NCD/
BiodiversityCollectionsIndexKickOffMeeting. We hope the BCI will provide OBIS with a standardised list of institution and collection names, and a tool to locate and prioritise potential data contributions.
16 January 2008
US National Committee of Census talks to IOOS
The Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS, http://ioos.noaa.gov/) is a multidisciplinary system to integrate ocean observations from a vast number of different sources and different types. It is a mechanism for the US to contribute to the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). Biodiversity and biogeography are an essential part of any observing system, and will become a component of IOOS as well. During a two-day workshop, on 14 and 15 January, held in Washington DC, discussions were held to see how the Census of Marine Life can contribute to the biological component of IOOS. More specifically, participants investigated how OBIS should be expanded to maximise the value of its contribution to IOOS. It was agreed that, as a first step, OBIS standards (DiGIR, the OBIS Schema and WoRMS) have to become part of the Data Management and Communications (DMAC, http://dmac.ocean.us/index.jsp) set of standards.
For more information on this workshop, including presentations and a participant list, please visit http://coml.us/Dev2Go.web?Anchor=ocean_observing.
16 January 2008
World Register of Marine Species exceeds 100,000 target
The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS, http://marinespecies.org) has now 110,000 valid marine species names, and thus easily reached the target of 100,000 the team had set itself for the end of 2007. The next target is to reach 200,000, or roughly 80% of known marine species, by the end of 2008. WoRMS is now already used in the quality control of species names in OBIS, and will soon be included in the web interface. Thanks to the team at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ, http://www.vliz.be) for bringing this together, and the many taxonomists who have donated time and effort to this venture. The EU supports VLIZ for this, and to run the European node of OBIS, through the EU Network of Excellence 'Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning' (MarBEF, http://www.marbef.org).
10 January 2008
IOC develops new information system for Harmful Algal Blooms
On 8 and 9 January 2008, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission organised a meeting in Oostende, Belgium, to discuss a new data and information system for Harmful Algal Blooms. The system should not only be able to sore information on blooms, but also associated information: taxonomy, bio-active substances, species records... OBIS was invited to the meeting, and will play a role in taking this initiative forward. The present IOC information system on HABs is available through http://www.ioc-unesco.org/hab/
10 December 2007
In Memoriam Robin Rigby
Robin Rigby, project manager of NaGISA, passed away in a motor cycle accident on 9 December 2007. Robin will be warmly remembered by all who knew her. She was a valued colleague and dear friend. We will dearly miss her.
5 December 2007
Development of Tropical and Subtropical Western South Atlantic OBIS (OBIS in Brazil) with new funding from partnership between University of Sao Paulo (USP) and Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (PETROBRAS)
A new agreement has been signed between USP and PETROBRAS, establishing a partnership to continue the development of the OBIS RON in Brazil for a period of up to 36 months. PETROBRAS support will improve equipment, number of personnel and outreach activities. USP will maintain supervision of new datasets, mainly of validated records, and managing of the RON.
29 November 2007
Mexico getting ready to start publishing data through OBIS
In a 1 1/2 day workshop, from 27 to 28 November 2007, Mexican scientists discussed publishing biodiversity and museum specimen data through the OBIS network. The main potential partners are 'Comisión nacional para el conocimiento y uso de la biodiversidad' (CONABIO) and the 'Universidad nacional autónoma de México' (UNAM), with the Institute of Biology (UNAM-IB) and the Institute of Marine Sciences and Limnology (UNAM-ICML), as prime sources of biogeographical data. We hope the discussions will lead to Mexican data being available through OBIS very soon, not only from CONABIO and UNAM, but also from other interested Mexican organisations.
18 November 2007
Census of Marine Life meets in Auckland, New Zealand
Several meetings associated with the Census of Marine Life (CoML) were heldin Auckland, New Zealand, from 11 to 17 November 2007. Mark Costello and hiscolleagues from the Auckland University did a sterling job at making sureeverything went very smoothly. OBIS was discussed extensively, in many ofthe different meetings. It is clear that the CoML community has highexpectations of OBIS, and that OBIS is seen as a lasting contribution to thescientific world, remaining in existence after the expected finish of theCensus in 2010.
10 November 2007
World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) accepted as marine node of Species2000
WoRMS, the World Register of Marine Species the OBIS community isdeveloping, was accepted by Species 2000 as its marine node. Many of theGlobal Species Databases (GSDs) now maintained within the WoRMS system willautomatically be contributed to Catalogue of Life. Catalogue of life is acollaborative venture between Species 2000 and ITIS, and isregarded by many as the prime supplier of information on taxonomy.Discussions on how to organise this were held in Auckland, New Zealand from7 to 9 November 2007.
1 November 2007
Phoebe Zhang has left OBIS
After more than 10 years at Rutgers, Phoebe is leaving. Phoebe was instrumental in building OBIS, and was for a long time virtually single-handedly responsible for running the secretariat, including data management and web site development. She will be dearly missed. We wish her all the best in her future ventures.
31 October 2007
CoML/OBIS meeting in Oman
Edward Vanden Berghe attended a meeting at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman, from 28 to 30 October. The meeting was organised to discuss regional participation in CoML and OBIS activities. Representatives of Oman, Pakistan, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi-Arabia, and several international experts, defined regional activities in support of OBIS and CoML. A possible outcome of the meeting is a Regional OBIS Node for the North West Indian Ocean, including Red Sea.
18 October 2007
GBIF meetings in Amsterdam
Two meetings of GBIF were held in Amsterdam: GBIF Nodes meeting on 14 and 15, GBIF Governing Board meeting on 16 and 17 October. The GBIF nodes meeting was, for the first time, a joint meeting with the OBIS RON managers. OBIS was given the opportunity to present its activities, and the relationship between OBIS and GBIF was discussed. During the Governing Board meeting, the proposals for GBIF Campaigns were discussed. One of these campaigns was in support of the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), proposed by a number of people from the OBIS community; another one was to use GBIF (including OBIS) to create indicators to support the 2010 goal of halting biodiversity loss. Both these campaigns, and the two others proposed, were endorsed by the Governing Board. OBIS expressed an interest in working together with the proposers of the 2010 Campaign, since it clearly relates also to OBIS objectives.
13 October 2007
Informal RON meeting in Amsterdam
Several of the OBIS RON managers, and others from OBIS, were in Amsterdam to take part in the GBIF meetings of later this week. We took the opportunity to organise an informal RON meeting. During the meeting, progress with OBIS development was discussed, as was its long-term future and life after Sloan support. Vishwas Chavan stepped down as Managers Committee chair after accepting the position of DIGIT Officer at GBIF. Fabio Lang da Silveira was appointed as the new MC Chair. Thanks to Fabio to be willing to accept this challenging position. Thanks also to all people who came to the meeting. A full report will be distributed soon.
5 October 2007
Ocean Biodiversity Informatics Conference in Halifax concluded
An Ocean Biodiversity Informatics conference was held on 2 to 4 October 2007 at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. Many of the OBIS node managers and others from the OBIS community were present, and discussed with representatives of GBIF, ICES FAO and others many issues related to biodiversity informatics. A full description of the event, and abstracts of all presentations can be found on the the conference web site.
28 September 2007
Tony Rees visits OBIS Secretariat
Tony Rees, who pioneered many of the developments in the OBIS web site, paid a two-day visit to the OBIS secretariat at Rutgers University. Tony assisted us in implementation of the finer points of the c-squares mapper. Another topic discussed was the Interim Register of Marine and Non-marine Genera, how this could serve to support management of taxonomic names on the OBIS web site, how it will interface with the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), and how it can be used to filter the marine records from mixed marine/non-marine data sets.
24 September 2007
OBIS at the 2007 Ices Annual Science Conference
The 2007 Ices Annual Science Conference was held in Helsinki, from Monday 17 to Friday 21 September. The president of Finland, Tarja Halonen, opened the conference, indicating the importance of ICES and its ASC. Edward Vanden Berghe co-chaired one of the meetings, and gave a presentation on data management and sharing in the framework of the North Sea Benthos Project. Data from the NSBP will be available through EurOBIS very soon. A copy of Edward's paper, and of all other papers presented, can be found on the ASC pages on the ICES web site.
10 September 2007
The ACON mapper gets a major update
Jerry Black from the Bedford Institute ofOceanography, author of the ACON programme,paid a visit to the OBIS secretariat at Rutgers University. The main item onthe work plan for the visit was to incorporate new features of the ACONprogramme into the OBIS web site, such as generation of zero-value recordsand display of time series. If all goes according to plan, these featureswill be available through the OBIS web site with the next release of thecoding, scheduled for October 2007.
5-September-2007
New data available through iOBIS
Ten new datasets are now available through OBIS, adding nearly 200,000 distribution records. The datasets have been contributed through Regional OBIS Nodes: one from each of OBIS Canada, ESP OBIS and AR OBIS; three from OBIS China; four more datasets came from the Australian Antarctic Data Centre. A complete list of the datasets, plus links to the metadata records, is available here. Thanks to all data contributors for the data, and RON managers for facilitating this.
5-September-2007
Changes to the OBIS web interface
Much time and effort has gone into reorganising the code behind the OBIS web site. This work was mostly invisible on the web site itself, except for some bug corrections and performance improvements. Re-organisation of the code is now to a large extent done, and the first changes visible on the web site
- More than 100,000 records can be returned from a query
- A link has been added to the species result page, to download all results in one page, rather than in pages of 10 species
- We created an RSS feed, to which you can subscribe to be informed about new data and new functionality available from OBIS
- The metadata available on the OBIS web site have been revised, and enriched with information extracted from the data.
27-August-2007
Alert: service change
To support world-wide mirror service OBIS will switch its Domain Name Server to a different company between 1:00 -2:00 am EST (GMT+5) 9/1/07. We have set up an implementation plan and obtained assurance from our Internet registrar the switch will take effect instantly. The user therefore will not experience prolonged interruptions. However, during the first 24-72 hours after the transition volatility may occur. Should any interruptions occur, you can access OBIS data at http://iobis.marine.rutgers.edu.
25-July-2007
IndOBIS updates The IndOBIS Annual Review Meeting was held on 24 July 2007. During this meeting, plans for further regionalisation of the Indian Ocean node were discussed. Dr C.T. Achuthankutty will be retiring soon; Dr Baba Ingole will be representing IndOBIS in coming OBIS Managers' Committee meetings. Our heartfelt thanks to Dr Achuthankutty, and a warm welcome to Dr Ingole.
24-July-2007
OBIS publishes 222 data sets
Keeping its fast-growing pace, OBIS has surpassed 13.4 million records and is publishing 222 data sets. As a member of OBIS Australia, the Australian Institute of Marine Science provided benthic and fish data collected by the Atlantic and Gulf Rapid Reef Assessment Program. Also added to the Portal are Gulf of Maine Biogeographic System database from University of Maine, A Biological Survey of Woods Hole and the Vicinity database from Smithsonian Institution, and a major database on fisheries in the Province of Chubut-Argentina from the Southern Ocean Node of OBIS.
22-June-2007
Australian Antarctic Data Centre contributes new datasets to OBIS
The Australian Antarctic Data Centre has published four new datasets on the OBIS Portal, bringing their total contribution to 0.3 million records. The newly added datasets are: Electron Micrograph Database, Inventory of Antarctic seabird breeding sites, Pelagic Fish Observations 1968-1999, Kelp rafts in the Southern Ocean, and Pelagic Fishes of the Eastern Antarctic Ocean.
22-May-2007
KORDI organises symposium to celebrate the "International Day for Biological Diversity"
The Korean Ocean Research and Development Institute (KORDI), the hosts of the Korean node for OBIS, organised a one-day symposium to celebrate the "International Day for Biological Diversity". In a series of presentations, scientists introduced Korean biodiversity, terrestrial and aquatic. Also marine biodiversity in Korean waters and KorOBIS plans for the future, and the international OBIS were presented.
19 May 2007
SeaMap in the news!
dukenvironment, a publication of the Nicolas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, has published an article on SeaMap in its Spring 2007 issue. Pat Halpin and Ben Best explain how new technology gives them the tools to do better science and be better resource managers. Check it out, as a web page, or download a PDF (2MB).
20 April 2007
OBIS MC meets in Sao Sebastiao, Brazil
The OBIS Managers' Committee met from 16 to 17 April in Sao Sebastiao, Brazil. Host was the 'Centro de Biologia Marinha (CEBIMar)' of the 'Universitade de Sao Paulo (USP), local organiser was Fabio Lang da Silveira. The most important point on the agenda was to discuss the future of the OBIS network, and how to make it sustainable after 2010, when the Sloan Foundation funding will no longer be available. Bob Branton stepped down as chair of the MC, Vishwas Chavan was elected unanimously as new new chair. We welcome Vishwas, and thank Bob for the splendid work he did as chair. Of course, Bob will remain very active, and will continue to lead several of the OBIS working groups.
3 April 2007
OBIS Executive Director hired
The OBIS Secretariat is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr Edward VAnden Berghe as OBIS Executive Director. Dr Vanden Berghe was the manager of the Flemish Data- and Information Centre, located at the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), where one of his tasks was to set up and manage the European Node of OBIS, EurOBIS. He was also responsible for reviving the European Register of Marine Species (ERMS), and to start expanding ERMS into the World Register of Marine Species, WoRMS. Before coming to VLIZ, Dr Vanden Berghe was living in working in Kenya, holding various positions involving data- and information management for environmental sciences, and teaching at the University of Nairobi. He was the first chair of the IOC/IODE Group of Experts on Biologic
