Ocean Biogeographic Information System

Ward AppeltansUNESCO, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC-UNESCO)

International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE)Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS)

Phlip GoldsteinUniversity of Colorado at Boulder

OBIS-USA

OBIS from Census of Marine Life to IODE

OBIS Organization and Status

OBIS Data, Access, and Participation

Outcomes

Global Relationships

Your Role and OBIS’s Role in biodiversity:How many species in the oceans?

OBIS: Biodiversity Data, Community, Relationships, Outcomes

From Census of Marine Life …OBIS was established as the data

repository and information dissemination system for CoML

… to UNESCO-IOC/IODE/OBIS

"Knowledge of the oceans biodiversity is of

such importance to national and global

environmental issues that the responsibility

for OBIS’s continuing success should be

assumed by governments” IOC 2009OBIS secretariat, database +

website moved from Rutgers

University (USA) to the IOC Project

Office for IODE in Oostende

(Belgium)

In June 2009, the 25th Session of the IOC Assembly decided through Resolution XXV-4 to adopt OBIS as part of IODE

OBIS Nodes(bold = NODC status, blue = thematic)

1. Antarctica / AntOBIS

2. Arctic / ArcOD/AOOS

3. Argentina / ArOBIS

4. Australia / OBIS-

Australia

5. Black Sea /

BlackSea-OBIS

6. Canada / OBIS-

Canada

7. China / OBIS-China

8. Europe / EurOBIS

MedOBIS

13.South-East Pacific /

ESPOBIS

14.South-West Atlantic /

WSAOBIS

15.South-West Pacific /

NZOBIS

16.Sub-Saharan /

AfrOBIS

17.USA/ OBIS-USA

18.Iran/ PEGO-OBIS

Philippines/ SEA-

1. Global / MicrOBIS

2. Global / OBIS-

SEAMAP

3. Global / Hexacorals

1. MicrOBIS

2. OBIS-

SEAMAP

3. Hexacorals

4. FishBase

5. Seamounts

Regional / National …

Thematic

OBIS is the world’s largest open access,

online data system on the diversity,

distribution and abundance

of marine species

> 40 million

observations

115,000 marine

species

> 1,600 datasets

> 450 data providers

in 56 countries

www.iobis.org

OBIS Steering Group

OBIS trainingsAccess, process, quality control, publish and use …

… marine biodiversity data

OBIS: Data Record of Biological Occurrences:

Named Taxon, location, date/time

The Standard: Ratified Darwin Core

Circumstances of Observation

Biological details

Sampling method

Environmental Conditions

Administrative details:

Institution and Individual Attributionand Citation Requirements

What type of data is in OBIS?Biological Occurrence Data

Occurrence data may represent:

• Specimen / Historical / Literature

• Survey data / Human Observation

• Machine Observation FUTURE

Web Site: www.iobis.org

Web services and tools: OGC, IPT

Query by dataset, taxon, location

Access by association with physical/ chemical/ climate data

How do users access OBIS Data?

Association of observation points

with oceanographyObservation data associated with

Bottom depth

Temperature

Salinity

Nitrogen / Oxygen

Phosphate / Silicate

Visualized through interactive graphs

Time-series graphs

Histograms

Climate variables from World Ocean Atlas

Association of observed species

with oceanography

Climate variables from World Ocean Atlas

Observation data associated with

Bottom depth

Temperature

Salinity

Nitrogen / Oxygen

Phosphate / Silicate

Visualized through interactive graphs

Time-series graphs

Histograms

Species climate envelopes

Calanus finmarchicus

Species depth distribution

Calanus finmarchicus

OBIS Nodes recruit and develop data and metadata

Program Office harvests data from nodes, integrates into aggregate database

Distributed system; Nodes control their data

Nodes’ local community can be reflected in their activities and outcomes

How Do Data Become Part of OBIS?

Publications

OBIS Analysis and Baseline Products

OBIS / Synthesis Application Outcomes

OBIS Outcomes

OBIS Outcomes: PublicationMore than 900 papers have cited OBIS,

growing at ~7 papers per month

100 times series from OBIS

Number of sampling days per depth volume

99% of ocean volume is still undersampled

Appeltans W., Dujardin F., Flavell M., Miloslavich P., Webb T. (2015). Biodiversity Baselines in the Global Ocean. In: Fischer A. et al (Eds). Open Ocean Technical Assessment Report for the GEF Transboundary Water Assessment Programme (TWAP). UNEP, IOC-UNESCO. In press.

OBIS Outcomes: Analysis & Baseline Products

Nr of records through time (latitude)

Global monitoring since 1950

Progressively increased in the Southern Hemisphere

Appeltans W., Dujardin F., Flavell M., Miloslavich P., Webb T. (2015). Biodiversity Baselines in the Global Ocean. In: Fischer A. et al (Eds). Open Ocean Technical Assessment Report for the GEF Transboundary Water Assessment Programme (TWAP). UNEP, IOC-UNESCO. In press.

OBIS Outcomes: Analysis & Baseline Products

Species richness indices

Hulbert index

Completeness based on Chao2

OBIS Outcomes: Analysis & Baseline Products

OBIS Outcomes: Analysis & Baseline Products

Appeltans W., Dujardin F., Flavell M., Miloslavich P., Webb T. (2015). Biodiversity Baselines in the Global Ocean. In: Fischer A. et al (Eds). Open Ocean Technical Assessment Report for the GEF Transboundary Water Assessment Programme (TWAP). UNEP, IOC-UNESCO. In press.

Two third of known species are uniques

Species richness indices

Hulbert index per MPA

Number of IUCN threatened species

OBIS Outcomes: Analysis & Baseline Products

Invasive species

Lionfish invasion in Caribbean (black before 1985, red after 1984)

OBIS Outcomes: Analysis & Baseline Products

OBIS Application

Outcomes

These density models are used to estimate official “takes” for marine mammal protection act and endangered species act regulations in the USA

OBIS-SEAMAP

Conservation

CBD-COP10 listed OBIS as a key source of information for the

identification of Ecologically or Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs)

Areas of high

biodiversityAreas of special

importance for the life

history of a species

Areas of significant

naturalness

Areas of unique-

ness or rarity

Area-based managementOBIS Application Outcomes

Global Science Programs / Ocean Governance

Requirements-Based

Active Outreach

Continuing Expansion

OBIS Relationships

OBIS Relationships( only a partial view! )

GEO

GEO BON• WG marine ecosystem change• WG data integration and interoperability

Scientific and data management community

Historical data (setting baselines) and data from non commercial, non-target fishery species

Assessments of current knowledge, geographical and taxonomic gaps

Indicators of biodiversity, species richness and species community composition (and changes through time)

Open-access data portal, integrating biodiversity data with climate variables (temperature, salinity, oxygen…)

Capacity building (training)

OBIS RelationshipsContribution from OBIS to global programmes

One Planet – One Ocean

THANK YOU