OBIS Australia – Regional Node for the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS)

OBIS Australia is an operational component of the Census of Marine Life and a partnership between the National Oceans Office (Department of the Environment and Heritage) and CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research

OBIS – a component of the Census of Marine Life

• The Census of Marine Life – a decade-long international collaborative project (2000-2010) to census what lives in the oceans; also...– what did live in the oceans (historical data –

e.g. before the impact of human activities such as fishing, etc.)

– what will live in the oceans (forecasts, e.g. effects of fishing, climate change...)

OBIS – a component of the Census of Marine Life

• The Census of Marine Life – a decade-long international collaborative project (2000-2010) to census what lives in the oceans; also...– what did live in the oceans (historical data – e.g.

before the impact of human activities such as fishing, etc.)

– what will live in the oceans (forecasts, e.g. effects of fishing, climate change...)

• OBIS – The Ocean Biogeographic Information System – has been established to provide the information management infrastructure for CoML data – now, and into the future.

OBIS Goal and Challenges

• OBIS Goal...– “To be the primary, authoritative source of data on the

distribution of marine species in the world...” (extract from CoML Research Report, 2005)

• Key Challenges...– Technical: To create a system capable of accessing, and making

available, all the relevant information (plus useful visualisation and analysis tools), for universal access over the internet

– Motivational: To promote the benefits of data sharing, and to build an international community of marine species data custodians willing to share their data via the OBIS network

– Practical: To provide assistance to data custodians to enable them to connect to the network, and to assist potential users of the data to successfully access it.

Addressing OBIS Goal and Challenges

• Mechanism adopted to address all three aspects...– 2002-2004: OBIS International Portal (Rutgers University, USA)

– 2005 onwards: International Portal, plus global network of Regional OBIS Nodes

– Each Regional Node has volunteered to progress OBIS goals within their particular region of responsibility.

Regional OBIS Nodes – as at December 2005 (China, Japan to be added in 2006)

OBIS Australia

• OBIS Australia – launched today (December 2005) – sponsored by CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, the Department of Heritage and Environment (National Oceans Office), and the U.S. Sloan Foundation

• Providing a route for data custodians to connect their holdings to the OBIS network, and for data users to access that data

OBIS Australia Significance

• Launch of OBIS Australia marks a new phase in:– Data availability – more agencies will

be able to put marine species data on line (in many cases, for the first time)

– Data integration – the OBIS system will do all the data interrogation and data integration for the user, and return an integrated result in a common format.

• This will underpin new types of scientific research and “public interest” access to research data for the future.

OBIS Australia

• Achievements to date– 100,000+ records made

available from CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research into OBIS

– Australian Museum community connected through OZCAM (150,000+ records)

– Australian Antarctic Division first Australian data to be connected

Credits: Kim Finney & Ian Poiner (formerly DEH, CMAR); Alicja Mosbauer, Amit Parashar (DEH); Paul Tildesley, Tony Rees, Philip Bohm (CMAR).

• OBIS Australia website: www.obis.org.au