OBIS progress 2002-2003 CITATION M. J. Costello, J. F. Grassle, Y. Zhang, J. Wood, T. Rees, R. Froese, G. Boxshall, D. G. Fautin, N. Ashcroft, D. P. Gordon, K. Stocks, Y. Shirayama, K. Finney, J. Wilkin, E. Vanden Berghe. 2004. Report of the Ocean Biogeographic Information System International Committee for 2002 and 2003. www.iobis.org SUMMARY The Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) is becoming the leading on-line source for marine species distributions in the world. The bringing together of this information through a federation of databases with instant access to analytical tools and maps delivers new insights of what lives where in the world oceans. Synthesis of this information aids understanding of collective patterns in biodiversity, such as species relationships, food web structure, and effects of climate change on ecosystems. OBIS is for use by students, researchers, fishery scientists and managers, educators, amateur naturalists, industry, consultants, environmental and nature conservation organizations. This information infrastructure is networking marine biologists, taxonomists, ecologists and oceanographers at regional and global scales. It is an Associate Member of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and subscribes to the GBIF policy on data sharing. OBIS was created as the information component of the Census of Marine Life (CoML) but is not restricted to its projects. Unlike CoML, OBIS will continue indefinitely. OBIS provides the following on an 'open access' basis through the World Wide Web: * taxonomically and geographically resolved data on marine life and ocean environment; * data from museums, fisheries, and ecological studies; * data from all ocean environments - seabed to plankton, coastal to deep sea; * interactivity with many other databases, including other on-line databases; * access to physical oceanographic data at regional and global scales; * software tools for checking species names, mapping, modelling, and biogeographic analysis. Since becoming established in 2002, the OBIS International Committee (IC) has worked with international and national organizations, scientific projects and programmes, and individual scientists to create a portal serving 1.3 million geo-referenced records of about 28,000 marine species. The data have come from museums (1% and 5% of records and species, respectively), fisheries (6% and 1%), field surveys (10% and 8%), and databases created from a variety of sources including the published literature (83% and 86%). Data can be overlaid on global maps of ocean depth, surface temperature, salinity, and chlorophyll. The ranges of species can be predicted on line based on the data selected by the user, and a model can be used to predict species distributions. The OBIS IC is working with these, among other organizations: (a) global organizations such as the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), Intergovernmental Ocean Data and Information Exchange (IODE), International Association for Biological Oceanography (IABO), Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMD), Species 2000, Diversitas, Joint Commission on Oceanography and Meterology (JCOMM); (b) multi-national organizations such as the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), NatureServe (USA and Canada), Conservation International, Integrated Taxonomic Inventory System (ITIS); (c) national organizations such as Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Centre of Marine Biodiversity (Canada), World Wildlife Fund (Canada), Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS; Ocean.US); (d) programmes and projects in Europe (MARBEF/EurOBIS, EuroCAT/Species 2000 europa, BioCASE, BIOMARE, MarLIN, SAHFOS), the US (e.g. CORONA, PEET, SEAMAP), and elsewhere (e.g. HMAP, FMAP, NaGISA, GoM Census, ChESS) (see www.iobis.org for a full list of acronyms). OBIS IC members have attended over 67 conferences and workshops to improve awareness of OBIS, and develop an understanding of user needs, potential data sources, and related activities. To advance the globalization of OBIS, a network of Regional Nodes to expand the data provider and user community is planned. A Canadian OBIS Regional Node is established and a European node funded; these will connect to the OBIS Portal during 2004. Other Regional Nodes are being considered in Australia, New Zealand, Alaska, Japan, China, South America, India, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Progress on the OBIS Portal and cooperation with other initiatives and organizations have positioned OBIS to be the global leader in mapping marine biological data over the internet. INTRODUCTION Because of their area, volume, and diversity of life, the world's oceans are the dominant component of the biosphere. Thus, an assessment of life on Earth must, in major part, be an assessment of life in the world ocean - a Census of Marine Life. The complexity of the marine ecosystem, and its interactions with social and political systems demand an interdisciplinary and integrated approach. Traditional, discipline-centered research methodologies yield a wealth of snapshots of the complex and ever-changing marine world. The challenges are to fill the gaps in these insights, to synthesize coherent patterns of marine life in space and time, and to develop testable hypotheses and predictive models of the origin and maintenance of these patterns. Today, as never before, the tools are at hand to meet this challenge - to conduct quantitative, geographically- and temporally-explicit observations and analyses of the living ocean. Taxonomists have new tools to define and identify species through combinations of genomic and morphological analyses, greatly aided by access to worldwide knowledge resources through the Internet. Remotely sensed and in situ observations are increasingly being made available through the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), creating an unprecedented amount of geo-referenced environmental and ecosystem data. Computer and communications capabilities permit rapid assembly and meaningful analysis of immense volumes of diverse data. Moreover, earth and life scientists have developed systems for planning, coordinating, and executing coherent and effective programs on a global scale. However, the marine biological community was not so organised until OBIS arrived. The Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), the information component of the Census of Marine Life (CoML), is a rapidly developing international science infrastructure. It provides access to data, information infrastructure, and informatics tools through an on-line, dynamic, global atlas of biogeographic information. The basic ingredient of OBIS is authoritative specimen and observational data which provide the 'ground-truthing' for remote sensing and associated habitat classifications; emphasis is on species-level, geo-referenced data. Through the use of internet-enabled GIS and other web-based analytical tools, biological data can readily be integrated with environmental data, maps, visualizations, and model outputs for a broadly based community of users. The OBIS atlas will be used to reveal spatial and temporal patterns, generate hypotheses about global marine ecosystems, and guide future field expeditions. These hypotheses are unlikely to be tested by experiments but will be supported or rejected by the biogeographic patterns that are the reality of our planet. The scope of OBIS offers new challenges in data management, scientific cooperation and organization, and innovative approaches to data analysis. The on-line, digital atlas developed by OBIS is expected to provide a fundamental basis for societal and governmental decisions on how to use and conserve marine life. MISSION AND GOALS OBIS is developing as both a major international research program and a federation of databases made interoperable through the OBIS Portal coordinated by the Secretariat. It is building coalitions with national and international database systems to: * energize regional, national, and international scale development of ocean biogeographic and systematic databases; * foster collaboration and interoperability by promoting standards and protocols; * advance integrated biological and oceanographic research by supporting a multidisciplinary ocean information portal; * speed the dissemination of and public access to ocean biogeographic information while appropriately addressing intellectual property rights issues. OBIS, and its diverse community of researchers, will elicit the needs and concerns of user groups, including resource managers, navies, industries, and environmental and educational groups, to balance their needs in a utility of broad value. OBIS' primary concern will be to make basic data sets accessible and interoperable. In most cases, it is expected that additional value, in terms of customization, advanced visualization, and applications, will be carried out by, or nearer to, the end users. OBIS is: * promoting uniform quality standards for marine biological data (data will be presented using consistent nomenclature in formats conducive to analysis and comparison); * bringing relevant geo-referenced and species-referenced biological and environmental data together in an interoperable system; * bringing the marine biology community together through coalitions among existing regional, national, and international information systems and research programs; * leading the world in marine species-relevant geographic database development; * developing a procedure for timely provision of synoptic environmental datasets and map products for the analysis of biological and environmental data at multiple spatial and temporal scales to reveal ecological and biogeographic patterns; * supporting the objectives and principles of the Global Biodiversity Information System (GBIF); * providing, through its portal, interoperability, analytical tools, and access to all components of an open-access, globally-distributed network of systematic, ecological, and environmental information systems that operate as a dynamic digital atlas to communicate biological information about the ocean and serve as a platform for further study of marine biogeographical relationships. Membership in the OBIS federation is open to any interested individual, country, or organization committed to the long-term maintenance of an accessible, relevant, biological database, and provision of its data through the OBIS Portal. Present members of the federation include CoML, NOPP-funded OBIS programs, and national databases interested in developing ties with the OBIS international system of databases. The OBIS Portal at Rutgers University is responsible for making the entire system interoperable. WEBSITE On the main Portal page of the OBIS website (http://www.iobis.org), users can search for information on the distribution of marine species overlain on maps of ocean environmental data. The website provides lesson plans for educators and attractive and informative images about marine life (see outreach section). A description of OBIS organization, and a history of its development are provided as well. OBIS has taken the lead in developing standards for the exchange of marine biological data by expanding existing standards to ensure compatibility with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), for which OBIS will be a major marine data provider. The website states the OBIS data-use policy, citation guidelines, and other standards. It also provides technical advice and assistance to data providers to facilitate their connecting to the Portal. In addition, a detailed "Frequently asked questions" section explains what OBIS is, what it does, and how one can become involved with it. INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE During 2002 and 2003, the OBIS International Committee members were: - Dr Mark J. Costello, Executive Director, Huntsman Marine Science Centre, St. Andrews, Canada (Chair); - Dr J. Frederick Grassle, Director, Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA; - Dr Daphne G. Fautin, Curator, The University of Kansas Natural History Museum, Lawrence, USA; - Dr Rainer Froese, FishBase-Coordinator, Institut f?reskunde, Kiel, Germany; - Dr Dennis P. Gordon, Principal Scientist, National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA), Wellington, New Zealand; - Dr Geoff Boxshall, Merit Researcher, Dept. of Zoology, The Natural History Museum, London, UK; - Dr Neil Ashcroft, HMAP Research Fellow, University of Hull, UK; - Dr Yoshihisa Shirayama, Director and Professor, Seto Marine Laboratory, Shirahama, Japan; - Ms Kim Finney, Chief Information Officer, National Ocean Office, Hobart, Australia, was replaced in 2003 by, - Dr Tony Rees, CSIRO, Australia; - Dr John Wilkin, Professor Rutgers University, joined the IC in 2003 to contribute advice on physical oceanography; - Dr Edward Vanden Berghe, Manager, Flanders Marine Data and Information Centre, Flanders Marine Institute, Ostend, Belgium, joined the IC in late 2003. Two OBIS Post-doctoral Research Associates, Dr Karen Stocks and Dr James Wood, and Dr Phoebe Zhang, the OBIS Portal manager, are ex-officio members of the IC. One of the first tasks of the OBIS International Committee was to create a website and Portal to accommodate data and software tools. The OBIS Technical Working Group, comprising Rainer Froese, Daphne Fautin, Phoebe Zhang, and Tony Rees, focuses on technical development. In workshops organized by this group, current and potential OBIS data providers have been trained in how to connect to the OBIS Portal, and discuss related technical issues. The OBIS International Committee convened five times in 2002 and 2003: Leiden, The Netherlands - 22-23 February 2002 Washington DC, USA - 5-6 September 2002 Brussels, Belgium - 23 November 2002 Rutgers University NJ, USA, 6-7 March 2003 Washington DC, 22-23 October 2003 Between meetings, communication is primarily by email and telephone. Committee members accepted individual responsibilities for liaison with other initiatives (Table 1). As OBIS expands in content, in membership, and geographically, responsibilities and needs of committee members will change. Thus, the membership and governing structure of the IC will be reviewed during 2004. Committees may be established to deal with technical tasks, coordinate nodes, capture species data, and communicate with CoML projects; there may also be an Executive Committee. Table 1. Roles and responsibilities of the OBIS IC members. Mark J. Costello Chair - coordinate committee EU projects MARBEF (EurOBIS), BioCASE, BIOMARE, Species 2000 europa; HMSC-ARC museum data; IABO; CORONA; MarLIN; SAHFOS (CPR); WWF Canada; NatureServe; FMAP Fred Grassle Chair CoML Scientific Steering Committee NODC, SCOR, IOOS-Ocean.US (DMAP), Nature Conservancy, NatureServe, Conservation International, NCAR, NOAA, WCMC Daphne Fautin Chair US National Committee for CoML Hexacorallia, OBIS Mapper, GBIF, Species 2000, Smithsonian, ITIS, LifeMapper, IOOS (outreach), NOAA, NMFS Rainer Froese Technical advice FishBase, GBIF, Species 2000, Fisheries data, ICES, FAO, EcoFish, Dennis Gordon Data rescue and taxonomy New Zealand rep, NZ Bryozoa, Species 2000, TWDG Geoff Boxshall Data rescue and taxonomy Diversitas, MARBEF Neil Ashcroft Data policy and citation HMAP, web site review, design, layout and citation policy Yoshihisa Shirayama Japan GTI, NaGISA Tony Rees Technical advice C-squares mapper, OBIS Index, Regional rep (Australia), CSIRO data, JCOMM John Wilkin Oceanographic data and models NVODS, GOOS Phoebe Zhang Portal management Data transfer protocols, SEAMAP (POST, TOPP) Karen Stocks Data capture to Portal Seamounts Online, standards, PBIN, GTI Japan, ChEss, MAR-ECO, NaGISA, IOOS (metadata) James Wood Outreach, website education, and accessory information CephBase Edward Vanden Berghe Technical advice IOC, IODE, JCOMM, MARBEF (EurOBIS), Belgian Antarctic databases, Regional nodes EXTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS Participation in international events A major task for the International Committee is to communicate with relevant national, regional, and international organizations. To this end, International Committee members participated in over 67 international events during 2002 and 2003 (Table 2). A similar range of conferences is planned for 2004 (Table 3). Such personal contracts foster cooperation and collaboration. This increased awareness and understanding of OBIS is an essential part of building this global community. Table 2. Meetings attended by OBIS International Committee members in 2002 and 2003. Meeting Date 2002 Location OBIS Representative ChEss Steering Committee Meeting January 16-17 La Jolla, California Karen Stocks Workshop on Exchange Format for Species related Data, ATCC/NSF/FAPESP January 16-18 Miami, USA Rainer Froese Ocean Sciences Meeting February Honolulu, Hawaii Daphne Fautin, Karen Stocks, Fred Grassle Species 2000 Asia Oceania Forum February 14 Kyoto University, Japan Rainer Froese, Dennis Gordon Workshop of the GBIF Scientific and Technical Advisory Group for an Electronic Catalogue of Names of Known Organisms March 15-16 Sydney, Australia Dennis Gordon, Rainer Froese 9th International Congress on the Zoogeography and Ecology of Greece and Adjacent Regions May 22-25 Thessaloniki, Greece Rainer Froese Pacific Biodiversity Information Network Information Forum June 10-12 Wailea, Hawaii Karen Stocks The Future of Marine Animal Populations (FMAP): Data, Models and Prediction June 20-23 Halifax, Canada Rainer Froese, Mark Costello DODS Ocean.US steering committee June 25-26 Chicago, Illinois Fred Grassle GBIF-STAG, data access and interoperability (DADI) June 27-28 La Jolla, California Phoebe Zhang SEAMAP kick-off meeting June 30-2 Durham, North Carolina Karen Stocks, Fred Grassle 3rd Global Taxonomy Workshop: Towards Sustainable Development, Partnership for Demand-Driven Taxonomic Capacity Building, Bionet International July13 Pretoria, South Africa Rainer Froese Scientific and Technical Advisory Meeting on Outreach and Capacity Building for the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) July 14-15 Pretoria, South Africa Rainer Froese 8th International Conference on Copepoda July 21-26 Keelung, Taiwan Geoff Boxshall Conference on Biodiversity Informatics - What is it, how can we deal with it, and for what may we use it August 9 Odense, Denmark Rainer Froese HMAP Workshop August 13-14 Durham, North Carolina Neil Ashcroft North Atlantic Project (CORONA) August 20-23 Shoals, New Hampshire Mark Costello, Daphne Fautin Marbena September 5-20 Virtual Mark Costello 1st Global Taxonomy Initiative Regional Workshop September 9-13 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Dennis Gordon ICSEB September 9-16 Patras, Greece Mark Costello, Geoff Boxshall, Dennis Gordon International Sponge Conference September 29-5 Genoa, Italy Phoebe Zhang International Council for the Exploration of the Sea Annual Science Conference October 1-5 Copenhagen , Denmark Karen Stocks, Rainer Froese, Phoebe Zhang Symposium: Key Innovations in Biodiversity Informatics October 21-22 Indaiatuba, Brazil Rainer Froese IODE Group of experts on the Biological and Chemical Data Management and exchange Practices (GEBCDME) November 25 Brussels, Belgium Mark Costello Colour of Oceans Data Conference November 25-27 Brussels, Belgium Mark Costello, Phoebe Zhang, Daphne Fautin, Karen Stocks Marine Biodiversity in the Present: Known, Unknown and Unknowable (KUU) Conference December 7-9 La Jolla, California Rainer Froese, Daphne Fautin, Karen Stocks, Fred Grassle, Phoebe Zhang First meeting of the US National Committee of CoML December 10-11 La Jolla, California Daphne Fautin Meeting Date in 2003 Location Representative Frontiers in Biogeography January 4-8 Nevada Karen Stocks SCOR/IGBP International Committee January 7-10 Paris, France Ann Bucklin CoML outreach and education meeting January 13-14 Narragansett, Rhode Island James Wood CoML SSC meeting January 20-21 Hobart, Australia Fred Grassle, Yoshihisa Shirayama NatureServe & NOAA habitat classification Workshop March 4-6 South Carolina Mark Costello OBIS Technical Working Group March 5-6 Rutgers University, New Jersey All TWG International cenference on the Barcode of life March 9-12 Cold Spring Harbour Lab, New York Fred Grassle, Ann Bucklin OPENDAP-DODS March 19-20 Boulder, Colorado Phoebe Zhang Metabiodiversity March 30-April 1 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Phoebe Zhang Millennium Assessment April 7-11 Vancouver, British Columbia Rainer Froese Bering Sea and Artic Ocean April 10-14 Fairbanks, Alaska G. Pohle (HMSC) US National Committee of CoML April 21-22 Washington, DC Daphne Fautin, Fred Grassle GBIF Governing Board April 30 - May 2 Copenhagen Rainer Froese Biodiversity Coastal Marine Ecosystems May 11-15 Renesse, Netherlands Mark Costello Defying Ocean's End May 30 - June 3 Cabo San Lucas, Mexico Fred Grassle, Karen Stocks UN Informal Process on Oceans and La of the Sea (UNICPOLOS) June 4 New York Phoebe Zhang CoML SSC meeting June 21-22 Southampton, UK Fred Grassle 7th International Conference Coelenterate Biology July 6-11 Lawrence, Kansas Daphne Fautin US National Committee of CoML July 21-22 Salem, Massachusetts Daphne Fautin HMAP workshop August 17-23 Hull, UK Neil Ashcroft 4th Biennial Conference Systematics Association. August 18-22 Dublin Mark Costello CORONA August Reykjavik, Iceland Mark Costello, Daphne Fautin Seamounts, Canyons/Plains August 22-23 Oregon Karen Stocks 10th Deep Sea Biology Symposium August 25-30 Coos Bay, Oregon Karen Stocks CoML archiving workshop September 5-7 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Daphne Fautin NVODS National Workshop September 10-12 Washington, DC Daphne Fautin, Fred Grassle SCOR Executive Committee meeting September 15-19 Moscow, Russia Ron O'Dor CoML African Marine Biodiversity Workshop, September 24-26 Cape Town, South Africa Dennis Gordon ECOFISH Workshop on Point Data (for FishBase/OBIS), September 29 - October 1 Barcelona, Spain Rainer Froese 21st European Union of Aquarium Curators October 1-5 Vienna Rainer Froese Pew Fellows Annual Meeting October 15-19 Blaine, Washington Rainer Froese GBIF Governing Board No. 7 October 4-10 Tsukuba, Japan Daphne Fautin CoML International public launch October 23 Washington, DC OBIS IC CoML SSC and all-PI meeting October 24-25 Washington, DC OBIS IC Marine Biodiversity in the Past: the Known, Unknown and Unknowable November 14-17 La Jolla, California Karen Stocks MARS (Marine Stations Europe) November 25-26 Amsterdam, Netherlands CoML SC Open standards for portal data exchange workshop November 27 BIO Dartmouth, Nova Scotia Mark Costello Deep Sea 2003 Conference December 1-4 Queenstown, New Zealand Dennis Gordon, Karen Stocks Information Systems on Biodiversity of Species & Ecosystems, December 1-4 St. Petersburg, Russia Rainer Froese SCOR & IGBP workshop December 8-10 Liverpool, UK Geoff Boxshall Table 3. Some of the international conferences in which OBIS will participate during 2004. Ocean Research Interactive Observatory Networks (ORION) workshop January 4-8 San Juan, Puerto Rico Fred Grassle DFO and NatureServe benthic classification workshops, January 6-9 Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Canada Mark Costello 13th International Bryozoology Association Conference January 12-16 Concepcion, Chile Dennis Gordon 28th IUBS General Assembly and conference January 18-23 Cairo, Egypt A. Pierrot (Mark Costello) ASLO Ocean Research Conference February 15-20 Honolulu, Hawaii Karen Stocks, Fred Grassle CoML SSC February 10-13 Penang, Malaysia Karen Stocks, Fred Grassle, Yoshihisa Shirayama GBIF Governing Board No. 8 April 26-30 Oaxaca, Mexico Daphne Fautin 4th World Fisheries Congress May 2-6 Vancouver, BC GeoHAB = marine geo- and bio-logical habitat mapping group May 3-7 Galway EurOcean May 10-13 Galway 10th International Coral Reef Symposium June 28- July 2 Okinawa, Japan GBIF Governing Board No. 9 October 4-8 Wellington, New Zealand Daphne Fautin Ocean Biodiversity Informatics 2004 November 29 - December 1 Hamburg, Germany Mark Costello, Edward Vanden Berghe OBIS organized one international conference (below) and two regional workshops. The regional workshops were held in North America and Europe, so as to interact with scientists who could become indirect or direct OBIS data providers and users. Reports of these workshops are available on the OBIS website. The workshops were very successful in attracting new databases to the OBIS portal (e.g. SAFHOS, MarLIN, AlgaeBase, North Sea benthos, Canadian fishery data). OBIS co-organised a workshop on "Open standards access to biological data" with the Bedford Institute of Oceanography and Centre of Marine Biodiversity (the Canadian OBIS Regional Node), and more recently (January 2004, report in preparation) a workshop on "Towards a global marine habitat classification" with NatureServe (USA and Canada), WWF and DFO. Colour of Ocean Data Conference OBIS co-organized an international conference on biological oceanography entitled "The Colour of Ocean Data" in Brussels on the 25-27 November 2002. Mark Costello opened the symposium on behalf of its scientific committee. In this he emphasized the importance of marine biodiversity to society and how (a) information technology could make information more rapidly and easily available to everyone, and (b) how OBIS could contribute the biological component of ocean data management systems. During the conference, there were nine presentations from current OBIS projects: * Branton R., J. Black, J. McRuer, and M. Fogarty. Using US and Canadian Atlantic research trawl surveys to lead development of a standards-based ocean observing system. * Tsontos V. M., and D.A. Kiefer. The Gulf of Maine Biogeographical Information System project: developing a spatial data management framework in support of OBIS. * Zhang Y. and F. Grassle. Integrating heterogeneous databases in Ocean Biogeographic Information System. * Martin A., L. Van Guelpen, G. Pohle, and M. Costello. Development of an Atlantic Canada Marine Biodiversity Information System based on a museum collection: a case study. * Fautin D. and R. W. Buddemeier. Corals and sea anemones on line: a functioning biodiversity database. * Boden G. and G.G. Teugels. Twelve years of FishBase: lessons learned. * Ramirez-Llodra E.Z., P.A. Tyler, and C.R. German. ChEssBase: a database for deep-water hydrothermal vent and cold seep species. * Stocks K. Seamounts Online: a biogeographic information system for Seamount biology. The keynote talk of the session on "biodiversity and biogeography" concerned species information systems and OBIS in general: * Costello, M. J. Why marine species play a central role in biological oceanography data management. In addition, OBIS partner programs gave presentations on species information systems: * Gomon J. The Integrated Taxonomic Information System. * Bisby F. Species 2000 Europa and the Catalogue of Life. and software tools: * Rees T. C-squares - a new method for representing, querying, displaying and exchanging dataset spatial extents. Other presentations concerned taxa, software applications, and physical and chemical oceanographic data management that may contribute to OBIS in the future. One session dealt with XML (extensible markup language) which is in use by OBIS. Some of the databases represented at the meeting may contribute to OBIS in future years, such as the Continuous Plankton Recorder, AlgaeBase, NemasLan, MysidLan, TaxonLan, TISBE (Taxonomic Information System for the Belgian Continental Shelf), WOD (World Ocean Database), ANT'PHIPODA (Antarctic amphipods), Antarctic echinoids, UK MARLIN (Marine Life Information Network, United Kingdom), MASDEA (Marine Species Database for Eastern Africa), BALTCOM (data warehouse), ODINAFRICA (Ocean Data and Information Network for Africa), and invasive species ENTAX (Encyclopedia Taxonomica). The proceedings will be published in 2004. A follow up conference, "Ocean Biodiversity Informatics 2004", will to be held in Hamburg, Germany in 2004. Workshop on Open Standards Access to Biological Data The Bedford Institute of Oceanography (BIO), as a world leader in development of standards and methods for collection, analysis, and exchange of scientific data and the Centre for Marine Biodiversity (CMB), as an internationally recognized organization for scientific activity associated with conservation of marine biodiversity, are both seeking to establish a shared vision with regards to open standards-based exchange of biological data. CMB recognizes the importance of publishing marine biodiversity data via international standards and expects to strongly influence and in doing so to effectively lead development of a Canadian OBIS portal. BIO, as part of the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI), is installing data provider and web mapping services, so that marine biological and fisheries data from DFO as well as CMB member sources can be published via the OBIS International and Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) systems. This workshop brought together several groups involved in this initiative, including * OBIS and GBIF committee chairs plus a leading taxonomic authority for this region to give first hand accounts of their activities; * DFO science and informatics program leaders to describe their efforts to support global ocean observing initiatives; * client groups (e.g. DFO staff, WWF, Ecology Action Centre, NatureServe's Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre) to offer suggestions regarding these efforts; * general scientific and technical staff, conducting the scientific programs that will eventually appear through these systems were also present. The on-line report (http://www.marinebiodiversity.ca/en/standards.html) includes summaries of each participant's presentation with hyper-links to each of the 14 slide presentations given at the workshop and 16 respective homepages. The presentations, when taken together indicate that the data systems now being developed at BIO are rapidly evolving to a point that they can be expected to provide direct input to international standards-based systems such as OBIS and GBIF within months. The client groups foresaw that open standards will increase their confidence in the data and enable cross-jurisdictional mapping and analysis work not possible with current ad-hoc methods. They also expect that standards-based access will allow them to make better and more efficient use of their own resources and of BIO scientific staff's time. Post-workshop impressions of the participants, included at the end of this report, indicate without exception that there is consensus with regards to overall objectives and the course of action being taken with regard to open standards-based access to biological data at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography. This data exchange enables the Centre of Marine Biodiversity with BIO support to be the Canadian Regional Node of OBIS. OUTREACH The global scale geo-referenced data compiled by OBIS provides a rich and scientifically authoritative foundation on which to base educational outreach. The federation of OBIS projects has succeeded in making information easily available since its inception. Most OBIS projects have a significant online presence and many have developed their own successful outreach components. For example, online collections of images or video material are available from BATS Zooplankton, Biogeoinformatics of Hexacorals, CephBase, ChEss, FishBase, The Huntsman Marine Science Centre, NODC, SEAMAP and SeamountsOnline. These visual resources are typically accurately identified or explained by leading scientific experts. The resources are used by educators to teach students marine biodiversity, specific taxa, marine habitats, and other subjects from math to art to artificial intelligence. Many OBIS sites allow users to query the data on species, to make species distribution maps and to look at predator-prey interactions. This gives students and teachers the access to the same information that scientists have. Perhaps one of the most important things OBIS demonstrates is something that can not be easily taught from textbooks: science is an ongoing and dynamic process instead of a summary of static facts. There are plenty of unsolved questions and unknowns that the next generation of scientists can work on. The Portal brings many OBIS projects together and allows users to query data from member sites. The image library has images ranging from anemones to fish to octopuses to whales, to deep sea mountains. It also includes examples of online maps created from the OBIS Portal, the same kinds of maps that students and teachers can create on the species that interest them. However, like some of the individual OBIS sites, this Portal has gone beyond facilitating easy access to data for teachers and students and has taken the next step by developing educational outreach content. In the "Educational Resources" section of the OBIS Portal, there are lesson plans in web quest format for teachers. The first lesson plan is on taxonomy, how scientists organize life into groups with similar characters. Students are challenged to make their own classification scheme for household items. They are then given 10 phyla of marine animals and asked to investigate their differences. Students learn about biodiversity which is a key concept in biology as well as a central theme for the Census of Marine Life. There are additional lesson plans that investigate endangered fishes (seahorses, groupers, sturgeons and gobies) and the complex social and economic causes of their decline, the causes of coral diseases and on cephalopods covering what they are, where they live, their senses, and their ability to camouflage. The internet is an ideal platform for providing top-quality scientific content directly to students and teachers on a global scale. The Census of Marine Life saw this advantage early on. OBIS sites, individually and as a collective in the Portal, are in an ideal position to lead the way. DATA CAPTURE The quantity of data available through the OBIS Portal is growing rapidly (Figure 2). By October 2003, the data provided comprised over 1 million records for 28,000 species (Table 4) from all the world oceans (Figure 1, 2). At present, the Portal serves data from 13 databases (Table 4), and an additional 21 databases are being prepared to come on line (Table 5). The data have come from museums (1% and 5% of records and species, respectively), fisheries (6% and 1%), field surveys (10% and 8%), and databases created from a variety of sources including the published literature (83% and 86%). It is envisaged that sufficient data will be available by 2010 to conduct a census of marine life (Figure 3). Figure 1. Growth of data available from the OBIS Portal. Table 4. Estimated numbers of species distribution records and species available on the OBIS Portal in December 2003. DATABASE RECORDS SPECIES Calanoid Copepods & Euphausids, Zoogene 114 44 Zooplankton, NODC 1,142 64 Squids & Octopus, Cephbase 3,172 328 Seamounts Online 7,018 1,523 Museum Fish, Fishnet 13,309 1,392 Molluscs Indo-Pacific 16,201 2,333 Zooplankton Bermuda Atlantic Time Series 18,136 186 Anemones, Corals, Biogeoinformatics of Hexacorallia 21,682 2,210 Mammals, Turtles SEAMAP (including Australian Antartic Data Center ) 338,260 51 Canadian Fisheries, DFO 60,162 267 mid-water animals SOC 92,164 2,060 historical fish HMAP 178,952 65 All marine fishes, FishBase (including ICES & FAO catch data) 638,362 17,764 TOTAL 1,388,674 28,287 Figure 2. Distribution of data on fish and marine invertebrates available from the OBIS Portal in October 2003. Table 5. Summary of data sets coming to the OBIS Portal. In addition some other recent and current CoML projects may provide data to OBIS. In preparation to serve data on line Other CoML projects that may provide data CMB (Canadian portal, DFO, HMSC and Parks Canada databases) TOPP ChEss POST MarLIN (K. Hiscock) MARECO SAHFOS CPR TIES SpongeBase NaGISA BioMar-Ireland (M. Costello) CeDAMAR North Sea benthos (VLIZ) FMAP AlgaeBase (M. Guiry) Invasive species Serpulidae (H. ten Hove) Smithsonian New Zealand Bryozoa (D. Gordon) GMBIS East Mediterranean & Black Sea (A. Eleftheriou & C. Arvantidis) GoM census Aplacophora (A. Scheltema) BODC Nemertea (Ray Gibson) Fish digenetic trematodes (T. Cribb) Turbellaria & Gnathostomulida (S. Tyler) Pelagic ostracods (M. Angel) Deep sea fish (N. Merritt) SOMBASE (H. Griffiths) ICES survey data (via FishBase) On-line data Collation DATA ACQUISITION STRATEGY In the establishment phase, the primary focus was on OBIS as the core data facility of the CoML, providing and facilitating access to data generated by the CoML field projects. However, it was always recognized that data rescue was an important element in the OBIS strategy, so emphasis was also placed on acquiring existing data sets classified as endangered (for reasons such as retirement, lack of institutional support, etc.). Funding made available by the OBIS IC was used to support some priority projects to rescue taxonomic knowledge and make it available to the scientific community and public. The first set of data-rescue projects was based on a call for proposals and funding was allocated to projects selected to cover a range of taxa over various geographical scales, but primarily global. Projects on New Zealand Bryozoa by Dr Dennis Gordon (NIWA, NZ), Nemertea worms by Prof. Ray Gibson (Liverpool John Moores University, UK), and marine turbellarian flatworms by Dr Seth Tyler (University of Maine, Orono, USA) are underway. A list of potential additional projects is maintained by the OBIS IC. A second set of high-priority data-rescue projects has been identified that vary in stage of development. The IC will seek new funds for these projects, from beyond its own budget and funding sources. The next phase of OBIS data rescue and acquisition will be targeted differently and has a new set of priorities. OBIS currently serves a considerable volume of data on fishes, cephalopods, and zooplankton but it is weak in benthic invertebrate data. The twin objectives of this phase are: 1. To strengthen OBIS coverage of marine benthic invertebrates Many important and well-known groups, such as the sea-squirts, echinoderms, and sea-spiders, are exclusively marine and predominantly benthic. OBIS will proactively target such taxa in the data-rescue program. 2. To improve coverage of rare taxa in OBIS. Most species in the world are rare and appear to have very localized known geographic distributions, although in many cases this may reflect a lack of knowledge. The effort to capture comprehensive distributional data on rare species is proportionally less than for common species. The phenomenon of rarity is of both popular and scientific interest. Society values rare things, and conservationists prioritize the protection of rare species, including those endemic to small areas. The OBIS priority for capture of distribution data for rare species in its data rescue program will proceed in parallel with the provision of access to existing databases of fishery and ecological surveys in different parts of the world (which already cover many of the common species). Meeting these two objectives will enable OBIS significantly to improve the percentage of marine species covered. This statistic was of considerable interest at the launch of CoML, in October 2003, and is expected to continue to be a high profile measure of progress of OBIS toward achieving its goals. Objectives will be met by the following stepwise process: 1. Authoritative Taxon Lists. The first step of a "Census of Marine Life" is a list of all known marine species. The OBIS IC estimates that about 210,000 marine species have been described, of which perhaps 60,000 are already in electronic databases (e.g. the European Register of Marine Species contains 30,000 valid species). Organizations with which OBIS is collaborating, such as Species 2000, ITIS, and GBIF, are leading development of a Catalogue of Life of all species in the world. 2. Georeferenced Species Lists The next step is adding georeferenced records to the authoritative taxon lists, to build OBIS-compatible databases. OBIS is contacting international specialists to create a team of experts committed to the provision of data. The type locality, from which a species was originally described, is of both scientific and historical importance. Since it is known for most species (and some are known from nowhere else), capture such a single latitude and longitude for every described species is feasible. 3. Comprehensive Distributional Data The final step is provision of comprehensive geographical information in which all quality-controlled records of species are available on-line via OBIS. Steps 2 and 3 can be combined in macrofaunal groups for which the taxonomy is reasonably mature and stable. To achieve these objectives a network of experts in each taxonomic group is being developed by the OBIS IC. OBIS will encourage and facilitate such experts to produce global species databases. TECHNICAL TASKS To support the efficient functioning of the OBIS Portal requires software tools, computer programming, and standards for data and data exchange protocols. Mapping The CSIRO Marine Research (CMR) c-squares mapper produces on-the-fly visualizations of point data locations by 0.5 x 0.5 degree (approx. 50 km) square, and operates as a web service that has been made available to the OBIS Portal courtesy of CMR. It has been incorporated into routines on the OBIS Portal since January 2002, and will also be employed to provide "quick maps" from metadata-level information to be held in the OBIS Index, currently under construction for the next generation of the OBIS Portal. The OBIS Mapper supplied by the Hexacoralia project can map a more limited number of data points, but can overlay them on a wider range of ocean maps, and calculates the range of environmental parameters (i.e. surface temperature, salinity, depth, chlorophyll) for the data selected. Areas of the ocean with these environmental conditions can then be mapped to predict where else the species may occur. Another such modeling tool is also served from the OBIS Portal. Having selected a dataset, a user can enter it into the 'Whywhere' model to map the predicted distributions of the species. New tools continue to be developed. Clickable maps showing the world Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ), Large Marine Ecosystems (LME), and Longhurst ocean biogeographic provinces are linked to occurrence records so a user can obtain a list of all taxa known to occur within any area. These tools are operational on the Hexacorallia website and will be installed on the OBIS Portal when the OBIS Index (see below) is operational. A significant proportion of species distribution data has been documented as place names and is not available on-line as latitude and longitude coordinates. 'Gazetteers' are available for place names on land, but these largely omit marine places. One solution is to provide a latitude and longitude for each place, and another is to plot the record to a polygon on the map (e.g. the EEZ of a country). OBIS is working towards both options (see above re EEZ). A gazetteer of many ocean research cruises has been developed by the Hexacorallia project and will be transferred to the OBIS Portal. Ocean data Both mapping tools on the OBIS Portal provide global ocean environment maps over which species distribution data can be mapped. Overlays of point data locations on a variety of base maps at global to regional scales, including bottom topography and modeled sea surface temperature (SST) are available via the CSIRO Marine Research (CMR) c-squares mapper (see below). These and other ocean maps, including shoreline, bathymetry, salinity, chlorophyll, are also available at 1/2 degree grid (ca. 55 km squares at equator) for the OBIS Mapper produced by the Hexacorallia project (http:// hercules.kgs.ku.edu/ hexacoral/ envirodata/ fulldb/ hex_modfilt_secondstep3dev1.cfm#Oceanic). OBIS Index At the time of the CoML media launch in October 2003, a prototype of an OBIS Index was demonstrated. It will underpin operation of the next generation OBIS Portal. This Index will allow OBIS queries to be carried out very rapidly, with the option to: * return species lists rather than searching on a single species at a time, as is currently the case; * produce "quick maps" and summary information (metadata) for every species for which distribution data are available; and * search by taxonomic category (e.g. "whales", "bryozoans"), which is currently not possible. Further benefits of construction of the Index will be the ability to: * do rapid "what lives here" queries by clicking on a map; * plot maps by taxonomic category (e.g. "all fishes", "all hexacorals"); * automatically correct users' or contributing databases' spelling errors, and more. These features will become available on the generation of the OBIS Portal to be released by mid-2004. Searching for data The first OBIS search interface allowed users to enter a species or genus, and limit their search by entering a latitude and longitude. A species name service allows users to check for synonyms and misspellings using the Catalogue of Life authority file. A more sophisticated search interface has been developed to provide users with 'quick' and 'detailed' search options, and the OBIS Index (see below) will allow for a wider range of search options. Several time-series data sets are now provided to OBIS, so users will be able to search on time as well as space. OBIS technical development plan Optimal strategies for sustainable development, environmental monitoring, habitat protection, and biodiversity conservation call for accurate information on marine life and the marine environment. The variety of processes and variables, the diversity of observational techniques and information management approaches, and the disparate temporal and spatial scales lead to heterogeneity in data formats, semantics, and ontologies. The surge in ocean observation and digitization efforts further aggravates the problem. A primary goal of OBIS is to interoperate heterogeneous ocean biogeographic information on a global scale and to discover critical knowledge by mining the integrated, value-added information reservoir. OBIS is working in 10 functional areas to approach the goal technically. 1) Standards for interoperation 2) Systems for interoperation 3) Mediating service 4) Scalable and reliable distributed system 5) Data quality assessment and quality control 6) Data mining for knowledge discovery 7) User interface 8) Visualization 9) Archiving 10) National language support These areas are not orthogonal, especially from the implementation point of view. For example, data mining techniques can be employed to find new knowledge as well as eliminate erroneous data points. Nevertheless, the 10 areas represent OBIS development efforts. 1) Standards for interoperation Standards on interface protocols, data exchange formats, and vocabularies are key to interoperation. OBIS has been spearheading efforts to develop and promote interoperation standards for the marine biology community. In 2002, a prototype system was developed based in HTTP/XML, a precursor to many developing systems in the biodiversity informatics community. In 2003, the OBIS IC and technical working group developed a full-length schema for species-based georeferenced key OBIS datasets and adopted the interface protocol and data exchange format DiGIR (Distributed Generic Information Retrieval). It uses the Darwin Core schema, which the OBIS Technical Working Group has expanded for marine purposes, the OBIS Schema. The standards developed and endorsed by OBIS have wide community support and are critical to its growth. In the next few years, OBIS will continue its standard-making efforts. OBIS is aware of related activities, including the ABCD Schema developed by the EU BioCASE project, to develop comprehensive standards for ocean information. Key activities will include 1) Spatial and temporal data modeling and exchange 2) CoML functional module data standards (with corresponding projects) 3) Metadata standard and exchange (DMAC, GBIF, NBII) 4) Web-service standards for marine information (CoML projects, Regional OBIS nodes, GBIF, DMAC) These standards will set the groundwork for data interoperation and further stimulate community-wide participation and collaboration. 2) System for interoperation Standards alone cannot facilitate interoperation and many data and metadata standards remain chiefly on paper because there is no solid system implementation to facilitate the information exchange. DiGIR sets a good example of delivering solid implementation with standards/protocols. Because it is backward compatible, the extended DiGIR can also be used to serve data to GBIF. Implementation of DiGIR will be improved, specifically to provide better scalability and reliability. DiGIR is best used to interoperate distributed data that although syntactically and semantically heterogeneous, occupy more or less the same semantic domain. To accommodate the growing information management needs of CoML (physical, chemical, and molecular) and to participate in the global ocean observing initiatives, the web-service framework will be used to interoperate data from overlapping domains. More significantly, web service will be used to wrap and organize all the OBIS visualization, analysis, and modeling tools in a service-oriented framework and take the Internet-based information infrastructure to its full potential. 3) Mediating service While areas (1) and (2) focus on achieving consensus on interface protocols, exchange formats, and domain semantics, in practice there will be data formats, semantic models, or information systems that are incompatible with the consensus. This requires mediating services or middleware. The wrappers OBIS developed for its initial data network are mediators in their simplest form. With the web-service framework set-up for long-term OBIS growth, more mediating services will be developed to reconcile the syntactic and semantic discrepancies and achieve optimal information integration. 4) Scalable and reliable distributed system The Internet-based infrastructure of OBIS facilitates global-scale participation and collaboration and leads to rapid expansion. Distributed information management on the Internet is still in its infancy, and many problems concerning data consistency and fault tolerance are being investigated in the distributed system and database research community. Present growth calls for prompt and reliable real-time query results; crawling and caching services (see description of OBIS Index) are being developed on the Portal to ensure performance in a federated data system. The system will evolve with the ever-changing Internet computing environment. 5) Data quality assessment and quality control False information is less desirable than no information and the foremost consideration in any scientific information management system should be data quality. Domain scientists will always play a central and judicial role in the quality-control process. Observation initiatives and information integration efforts have made available massive quantities of data; algorithms and tools need to be developed to aid scientists to do data quality control and calibration. The mapping facility in OBIS has been used as a quality-control tool and algorithms to solve the data redundancy problem in OBIS are being investigated. In the near future, statistical and data mining tools will be developed to assess the compatibility of different datasets in a federation and rule out outliers in general. 6) Data mining and analysis for knowledge discovery Machine learning algorithms have been applied in the OBIS modeling service to discover patterns and make predictions. Using massive computer power to search over parameter space and find the most probable patterns in data is still new and controversial in many disciplines. Because the data are not only results from hypothesis-based collection efforts, the mining results need to be closely investigated and validated by domain scientists. Nevertheless, data mining tools will be useful in reducing the hours scientists spend on data preparation and manipulation. 7) User interface (UI) Recent efforts have been made to design a more user-friendly interface with more entry points to the OBIS distributed network. In the near future, a map-based user interface will be enabled to allow a user to click a point on the map or select polygons (e.g. EEZ or LME) to get distribution information for the area. The interface will evolve with more information and tools. 8) Visualization OBIS has been offering the C-square mapper (CSIRO) and the OBIS specimen mapper (KU) to the end user for visualization purposes. EASy is also linked to the OBIS Portal to provide more GIS functions. With OBIS development, more visualization features such as 3-D and animation will be demanded and developed. Such features and more comprehensive search options are already available at the Canadian OBIS Regional Node. 9) Archiving OBIS will work with national data centers (e.g NCAR in the US) and digital library initiatives to archive the data in its network. 10) National language support The rapid development of CoML national programs and regional OBIS nodes requires consideration for national language support. Native language interfaces and systems are encouraged in regional node development, especially for countries where the public is not proficient in English. Regional nodes will join the OBIS technical committee and develop multi-language utilities. Other activities OBIS is collaborating with the LifeMapper project that aims to map predicted and known distributions of all species in the world, but which to date has not had expertise and data for the oceans. OBIS is able to provide both advice, and species distribution and ocean habitat data to LifeMapper. The availability of more comprehensive GIS software that can operate on-line is of interest to OBIS. The use of EASy, software developed as part of the CoML GMBIS project, ESRI GIS products, and other software in use by CoML projects and OBIS data providers are being considered. Other modeling and taxonomic tools that are not yet available on-line have been or are being developed by other organizations and projects around the world. The OBIS IC monitor such tools and investigate their potential utility and availability for the OBIS Portal. These include niche modeling (e.g. BioMapper), biodiversity data analysis (e.g. Biodiversity PRO), and climate models. FUNDING The IC is primarily supported by the Sloan Foundation through a two-year grant to Rutgers University. However, to develop OBIS, additional funding is required. The IC members individually submit proposals for funding and assist others in submitting proposals; the IC chair writes letters of support for proposals that will contribute to OBIS, including major proposals submitted and being prepared to submit to NSF in USA and the European Commission in Europe. Approximately $18 M has been committed to OBIS since 2000, initially from US sources and more recently from Europe (Table 6). In addition the CoML field projects (ca. $2 M) and other projects funded in relation to CoML (e.g. Chesapeake Bay database, Marine Invasives Database) may contribute data in the future. The future of OBIS depends on each projects' scientists writing proposals to maintain their support. Each one acts as an individual entrepreneur adding to the databases, conducting quality control and quality assurance, forming coalitions, fostering software development, developing Web functions, reaching out to the public, and developing curricula. Similarly, the Portal and Secretariat are exploring opportunities for joint funding. Table 6. The history of OBIS funding. NOPP = National Oceanographic Partnership Program (US); NSF = National Science Foundation (US); Sloan = Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; Lounsbery = Lounsbery Foundation; GeoConnections = GeoConnections Canada; EC = European Commission. * includes projects funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Sloan, NSF and NOAA. Period Budget US$ Projects Source funding Millions 2000-2002 $3.7 8 OBIS projects NOPP* 2000-2002 $0.1 SeamountsOnline NSF 2000-2002 $0.4 OBIS Portal NSF 2001-2003 $0.75 HMAP Sloan 2002-2003 $0.6 OBIS Secretariat Sloan 2002-2003 $0.14 SOC Bathypelagic database Sloan 2002-2004 $0.9 CephBase for curriculum development NSF 2002-2006 $1.9 SEAMAP marine mammals, turtles, and birds Sloan, NOPP 2003-2004 $0.02 Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea database Niarchos 2003-2005 $0.2 Atlantic Canada on-line database GeoConnections 2003-2005 $0.9 HMAP Sloan 2004-2007 $5.0 INCOFISH EC 2004-2009 $4.0 EurOBIS - MARBEF project EC The contributions of OBIS will approximately double in the next two years (Figure 4). With continued growth, plus the cost of the Secretariat and Portal, the annual cost of maintaining the OBIS federation in five years may be millions of dollars per year. For OBIS to be successful, a large part of this support must come from government agencies responsible for the development of national information infrastructures and ocean observing systems. OBIS will provide an international context for national databases and enable government agencies to achieve their missions more effectively. Biological data at the species level are an important component of these systems and OBIS is needed to provide authoritative biological information, create and enforce standards and protocols, and assist in setting priorities. OBIS may need to raise $100 million to become a fully developed and sustainable international program by 2012. The present success of OBIS and immediate opportunities indicate that it is on track to accomplish this goal. As the international custodian and developer of new ocean biological information infrastructure OBIS will seek funds, in coordination with GBIF and GOOS, to: * develop basic species-referenced and geo-referenced databases; * serve as international authorities for marine taxa; * establish and enforce standards and protocols for marine biological databases; * link marine biological subsystems through a central Portal; * provide vision and focus for international cooperation; * set research priorities for developing information infrastructure; * coordinate initiatives for funding from a broad spectrum of government agencies. The formation of a comprehensive business plan for OBIS will be an important task for 2004. OBIS will serve both providers and users of biological knowledge about the oceans. Principal clients will include, research organizations, fisheries agencies, environmental protection agencies, navies, database infrastructure organizations, museums, libraries, marine protected areas, conservation and environmental organizations, precollegiate, undergraduate, and public education; international standards organizations; industries (biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, transportation, resource extraction, software developers, publishers, education services, etc.); and university researchers. Several large funding proposals have been successful: (a) The MARBEF (Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function) research network, funded by the EC, will run from 2004 to 2009. It is coordinated by Dr Carlo Heip (also on EuroCoML committee), the data management component is led by Edward Vanden Berghe (a member of the OBIS IC), and it involves three other members of the OBIS IC, Mark Costello, Geoff Boxshall and Rainer Froese. It includes the establishment of a European OBIS node ('EurOBIS') that will (a) bring together marine species names and distribution data from databases in Europe, and make this available through the OBIS Portal at Rutgers University, and (b) update and expand the taxonomically authoritative European Register of Marine Species, which is the largest regional all-taxon marine species inventory in the world at present. Mark Costello wrote the ERMS and EurOBIS parts of the MARBEF proposal, and with Edward Vanden Berghe and Geoff Boxshall of the OBIS IC, will lead their implementation. (b) Yunqing Zhang is Principal Investigator on a US National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for 2004-2005 "An integrated Ocean Biogeographic Information System for knowledge discovery in bioinformatics" with Ann Bucklin, Fred Grassle, and Dale Kiefer as Co-Investigators. This renews a previous NSF award to Grassle and Zhang and will also contribute to developing the OBIS Portal. (c) The FishBase team at IfM Kiel was successful in securing the EU project "Integrating Multiple Demands on Coastal Zones with Emphasis on Aquatic Ecosystems and Fisheries (INCOFISH)". This is about data, tools, and concepts around coastal ecosystems, where FishBase will act as the main data repository. The project involves 44 scientists from 41 institutions in 28 countries, including several OBIS/CoML partners. The main themes (and work packages) are the following: 1) Overcome the 'Shifting Baseline' Syndrome (in collaboration with HMAP); 2) Provide Authoritative Species Inventories (will provide point data); 3) Provide Ecosystem Models (will explore the abundance issue); 4) Assist in Sizing and Siting of Marine Protected Areas; 5) Provide Framework and Tools for Analysis of Interactions and Flows in the Coastal Zone; 6) Provide Simple Indicators for Sustainable Resource Use (led by IfM); 7) Valuation of Coastal Ecosystem Services; 8) Provide a Spatial Decision Support System; 9) Evaluate Pros and Cons of Ecotourism; 10 Review Legal Instruments Relevant for Sustainable Coastal Resource Use; 11) Provide Access to Relevant Data, Tools, and Concepts (led by FishBase; will bring data to OBIS); 12) Bringing it All Together (IfM). Items 1), 2), 3), and 11) will feed directly into OBIS, while other items deal with long-term goals of OBIS. The project is expected to start in mid-2004 and run for three years. It has an overall budget of 5 million Euros. (d) Rainer Froese, OBIS IC member, was awarded a Pew Fellowship (US$ 150,000) following nomination by OBIS. His fellowship project will produce an electronic world atlas of marine organisms, which will run from the OBIS server. ?? ?? ?? ?? 1