OBIS Australia Regional Node for the Ocean Biogeographic

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 decadelong 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 decadelong 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 Co. ML 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 Co. ML 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 • OBIS Australia website: www. obis. org. au Credits: Kim Finney & Ian Poiner (formerly DEH, CMAR); Alicja Mosbauer, Amit Parashar (DEH); Paul Tildesley, Tony Rees, Philip Bohm (CMAR).