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

1

10

100

1000

10000

100000

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’