Ocean Biodiversity Informatics conference

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Ocean Biodiversity Informatics

• International Conference on Marine Biodiversity
  Data Management

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Objectives

• Stock-taking
• where are we?
• where do we want to go?
• Technological changes
• necessitate re-thinking of data management and
  role of data centres
• How to create large databases
• content
• technology

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Specific objectives

• bring together biological data managers to
  discuss the present state, and progress, in this
  field since the meetings in Hamburg (1996) and
  Brussels (2002)
• provide an opportunity for biological data
  managers to find out what is happening at
  international organisations
• discuss potential gaps and overlaps in the
  taxonomic and geographic scope of existing data
  systems
• discuss standards and protocols for data exchange
• how to integrate data from separate databases
• learn how these integrated databases have
  provided new insights

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Follow-up from previous meetings

• International Workshop on Oceanographic
  Biological and Chemical Data Management. Hamburg,
  Germany. 20-23 May 1996
• Bundesamt für Seeschiffahrt und Hydrographie,
• IOC, NOAA (WDC-A)
• Colour of Ocean Data Symposium. Brussels,
  Belgium. 25-27 November 2002
• Flanders Marine Institute
• OSTC, IOC, OBIS

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Hamburg 1996 objectives

• identify parameters that the IOC/IODE system can
  effectively handle
• describe minimum meta data requirements that make
  the data useful for future users of the data
• identify problems that may limit the usefulness
  of historical data
• identify users of these data and their
  requirements

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Hamburg 1996 topics

• Need for biological and oceanographic data
• Standardization of biological data collection
• Development of chemical and biological
  oceanographic data management
• Future technology
• Capacity building
• Funding

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Brussels 2002 objectives

• Bring together marine/oceanographic data users
  and providers from different backgrounds
• Biological vs physico-chemical
• Data manager vs scientist
• Identify common needs
• Identify points of common interest

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Brussels 2002 conclusions

• Differences between physico-chemical and
  biological databases
• Physicochemical data are larger volumes
  biological data are more complex
• Better established system for data exchange for
  PC data
• Commonalities more important than differences
• Need for proper data management archiving
• Make databases citable (incentive for data
  submission)

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International organisations

• IOC
• Lesley Rickards in opening session
• Several talks by people from NODCs
• ICES
• Julie Gillin in opening session, chair of
  session, closing session
• Talk/poster from ICES collaborators
• ICSU/WDCs
• Nick Michaelov, Robert Gelfeld
• Support from WDC-A to participants
• OBIS, GBIF, FAO

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Gaps and overlaps

• Needs inventory of activities
• Too much integration, too little work on the
  ground?
• inverted pyramid
• Too little work in the tropics?
• Too much observer bias to sexy groups like fish
  and molluscs?

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Standards and protocols

• Standards
• species lists, classification
• gazetteer
• information content/db structure
• Protocols
• mechanics of data exchange
• eg DiGIR, BioCASe

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Distributed systems

• Data creator remains in control of data
• Technological changes make re-thinking of the
  role of data centres necessary
• ICES re-inventing its data centre
• IODE review
• Discussions during COD conference

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Integrate data

• Within discipline
• OBIS, GBIF
• Create large databases, make distribution
  patterns visible
• Across disciplines
• physic-chemical parameters
• IOC/IODE, WDCs
• correlate distribution patterns with
  environmental information
• How to get at the data?

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New insights

• Integration leads to larger geographic and
  taxonomic scopes, longer time basis patterns
  clearer
• Turn data into information
• Data retrieval and visualisation tools
• Analysis
• Analysis tools
• Fisheries examples

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Four thematic sessions

• Information system development
• Taxon-based systems
• Geography-based systems
• Analysis

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Closing session

• Revisit COD panel discussion
• Consensus statement on need for large databases
• IODE review

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Publications

• Book of Abstracts
• Proceedings
• Theme section in Marine Ecology Progress Series

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Proceedings

• Content
• all papers
• approx 10 pages/article, black and white
• submit before 31 January
• Publisher
• IOC, VLIZ, others?

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Theme section MEPS

• Deadline for submission is now
• Only those papers that have scientific content
  that would pass the normal peer-reviewing process
  of MEPS
• See Mark Costello

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Organisers
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Financial support