Overview of OBIS, presented at the OBIS Indonesia Stakeholder workshop 27 September 2019

1. A BIODIVERSITY DATA AND
INFORMATION CLEARINGHOUSE
Mr Ward Appeltans
IOC-UNESCO
27 September 2019, Jakarta, Indonesia

2. 20 years ago

3. Coastal Marine Bioregions Map
Produced by Les Watling and Sarah Gerken
Modelled after Briggs (1995) and Springer (1982)
1998 20091998 2017

4. Census of Marine Life (2000-2010)

5. A journey of 50,000,000 records in time and space

6. 2/3 of our knowledge is in the
upper layer (5% of the ocean)

7. 20091998 2017

8. With the advent of global biogeographic databases, such as
the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS,
www.obis.org), detailed global biogeographic analyses, based
on species distributions, should eventually become possible as
species descriptions and distributional data are published.
2013

9. Marine biogeographic realms and species endemicityA global biogeographic classification of the mesopelagic
zone
20091998 2017

10. Open-access to research data
supports equitable access and benefit sharing and
enhances international collaboration

11. Reaching out to the world
Last 6 months

12. 1200 papers
2700 authors
72 countries
0
250
500
750
1000
1250
2005 2010 2015
Year
Numberofcitingpapers

13. Circular representation of inferred trophic interactions among
species, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, July 2019
The fish food web is globally
connected
But the impact of extinctions in
the open ocean is higher
compared to coastal areas
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-0950-y

14. Jones & Cheung, 2014, ICES Journal of Marine Science
Extinction intensityInvasion intensity
Multi-model ensemble projections of climate change effects on
global marine biodiversity. 10.1093/icesjms/fsu172
Fish moving poleward at rate of 26 kilometers per decade
Large numbers of fish will disappear from the tropics by 2050

15. Open-access to research data
supports global assessments and management

16. National reporting obligations

18. Estimated Number of undiscovered species (based on OBIS)
Not enough data for >50% of the ocean

19. Estimated number of potentially extinct species (based on >10 observations in OBIS, but
not reported anymore after 1970 )

23. OBIS2.0: upgrade of the OBIS
infrastructure to drive new
innovations in science and
technology and to meet the
increasing demands for services
globally
harvester
QC

26. Grand Prize winner of the USAID Wildlife Crime
Tech Challenge
https://youtu.be/qlX1cIg8XlA
Uses customized OBIS API service

27. VISION
To be the most comprehensive
gateway to the world’s ocean
biodiversity and biogeographic
data and information required to
address pressing coastal and world
ocean concerns.

28. MISSION
To build and maintain a global alliance that collaborates with scientific communities
to facilitate free and open access to, and application of, biodiversity and
biogeographic data and information on marine life.

30. Data latency

31. Global: median 2002 ABNJ only: median 1979
Still a lot of data archeology – Building the baseline
occurrence data provided after 2015

32. It is too much
work!

33. Stuart et al. 2018
Practical challenges for researchers in data sharing
CHALLENGE:
DATA PROVIDER ENGAGEMENT
Fear of poor data quality?

34. obistools R package https://github.com/iobis/obistools

35. obistools R package

36. I need
training!

37. In 2017: 151 people involved in 7 OBIS training courses

39. Major challenge for OBIS: support Essential Ocean Variabels (EOVs) data and
products (http://www.iobis.org/2016/12/15/goosgeobonobis/)
Building a global ocean biological observing system

41. OBIS-ENV-DATA

42. New terms in the
ExtendedMeasurementOrFact
extension:
• occurrenceID
• measurementType
• measurementTypeID
• measurementValue
• measurementValueID
• measurementUnit
• measurementUnitID
OBIS-ENV-DATA
dwc:dynamicProperties
SampleSize=Trap deployed for 2 days; Bottom
temperature=4.13C; Wind direction=0; Wind speed=1-3
knots
Sample size = 1.81 n.miles * 41.0 ft; Weight(Kg)= .11;
Temperature(C)= 6.46
ObservedWeight=0.000153901;
weightInKilograms=0.0404, lengthInMeters=0.163,
lengthType=FORK
SampleSize=million cells/m³; ObservedWeight=192.02;
Samplesize=Number per cubic metre; NetMeshSize=236;
VerbatimName=Calanus hyperboreus; Sounding=3300
SubSampleWeightInGrams=0.365999997; SubSampleNumbers=2;
CalculatedWeightInGrams=0.365999997;
CalculatedNumbers=2; SampledAll=Y;
AverageWeightInGrams=0.182999998;
NonSubSubWeightInGrams=; NonSubSubNumber=
{"sampleSize":"Filtered water volume: 506 m^3"}
{"attributes":"range of standard length: 4.8mm -
21.2mm"}

44. In Summary

46. UN Decade of
Ocean Science for
Sustainable
Development
(2021-2030)

47. UN Decade of Ocean Science for SD
THE VISION:
To develop scientific
knowledge, build
infrastructure and foster
partnerships for a
sustainable and healthy
ocean

48. FOR MORE INFORMATION
CONTACT
Ward Appeltans
Project manager
w.appeltans@unesco.or
g
Pieter Provoost
Data manager
p.provoost@unesco.org