Ocean Biogeographic Information System: exploring its content Edward Vanden Berghe Mark Costello Phoebe Zhang Fred Grassle
Ocean Biogeographic Information System:exploring its content
Edward Vanden BergheMark Costello
Phoebe ZhangFred Grassle
‘Mission’• OBIS publishes primary data on marine species
locations online through www.iobis.org – It facilitates data discovery and exploration by
• Searching by species, higher taxa, time, location, depth, database
• Mapping, overlaying species distributions on ocean environment, modelling of potential environmental range
• Integrates data – over different marine themes
• Microbes to whales• Genetics and morphology• Poles to equator…
– Over many data providers• Enables data capture for re-use• Support CoML 2010 synthesis
Taxonomic register
• Aphia is general species register maintained at VLIZ– Consists of several overlapping subsets
• defined geographical (ERMS, NWARMS…) • defined taxonomic (Porifera,
Platyhelminthes…)• defined thematic (HABs, invasive species)
• Exposed through www.marinespecies.org
• WoRMS = Aphia + external GSDs– Algaebase, Hexacorallia, FishBase…
WoRMS plans
• 100,000 valid species end 2007• 200,000 valid species end 2008
– 85-90% of known species
• Distribution records for all of these by 2010– Many species only known from
holotype!!
• Gap analysis
OBIS number of records
• 238 datasets
• In cache:– 13.6 million records, 147,000 ‘names’
• In index:– 6.9 million records at genus level and below,
80,000 species
• Among the largest providers to GBIF
Location of RONs
Map of CoML field projects
Data providers to OBIS
• 7 Million from RONs
• 700,000 from all CoML combined– Deadline for 2010 synthesis
Historical data
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10
100
1000
10000
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1000000
1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 2050
Limitations of OBIS and OBIS data• We don’t know the total
biodiversity– New species are discovered
• Selective sampling in geography– Mostly in surface waters– Temperate zones
• Selective sampling in taxonomy – Mostly big things, vertebrates
New species are discovered
Data from http://marinespecies.org
Taxonomic bias
Taxon # species # in OBIS %Cetaceans 133 117 88Seals… 45 36 80Fish 24139 21258 88
Decapods 8227 3796 46Echinoderms 6199 1624 26Bryozoans 6000 1096 18
Geographical bias
Bias in depth: deeper than 2500m
Analysis of OBIS data
• First attempts at diversity pattern on a global scale, with a large number of taxa– Previously either local or on one taxon
(e.g. commercial large fish like tuna, forams…)
– ‘Safety in numbers’• Results not affected by idiosynchrasies of
single taxon or study
• Results very preliminary, and need data cleaning and further checking– E.g. by artificially removing datasets
from analysis
Global pattern of sampling effort
Pattern in number of species
Corrected for bias: ES(50)
Large Marine Ecosystems
Current activities
• Adding data– Together with new and existing RONs– Metadata inventories– From CoML projects
• 2010 deadline!
• Completing the inventory of known marine species: WoRMS– Prioritise on having at least one distribution record
per species, preferably the type locality• Quality control
– Cleaning and harmonising taxonomy– Outlier detection
• Analysis– ‘Open for business’