CSIRO Marine Research Data Centre

linked databases - CAAB, MarLIN and Divisional Data Warehouse

CAAB - Codes for Australian Aquatic Biota

• Holds names and codes for Aquatic organisms of interest to our Division, plus selected other agencies, for use in data storage

• Adopted by a variety of other agencies as “de facto” standard for coding fisheries data in the Australian region

• Recently (1999) upgraded to hold codes for many other types of organisms

• Can hold cross-references to ITIS numbers and other codes

• Allows maintenance of the names to be decoupled from maintenance of the data

• Searchable via web interface by scientific name, common name or taxon code (or parts thereof)

• Can function as a live look-up table for other CMR databases which use codes as internal taxon idendifiers

example CAAB search result (search for “tuna”)

CAAB “meaningful” codes hierarchy (and “telephone” analogy)

• CAAB has 2-digit “major categories” - e.g. 10=Porifera, 37=Pisces, 63=Angiosperms … (country code)

• Has up to 999 family codes in each category, in a recognised systematic sequence (e.g. 37 005 to 37 024 are all sharks) … (area code)

• Holds up to 999 taxa in each family, assigned as next available number (allows for generic or species reassignment without needing to change the code) … (user number)

• “Split” families catered for without changing the code; “lumped” families or taxon transfers may require re-coding

• Allows for rapid automated filtering or sorting of data by codes alone

MarLIN - Marine Laboratories Information Network

• Divisional metadatabase - holds descriptions of datasets

• Uses regional standard (“ANZLIC”) metadata elements, plus agency-level extensions e.g. projects, surveys, vessels, taxonomic groups and CAAB species

• Searchable via www (intranet and internet)

• Includes structured result sets, sorted by keyword, etc. (similar to GCMD)

• All externally accessible records also retrievable via ASDD (Australian gateway for distributed searching)

• Records contain on-line links to further resources and actual data wherever appropriate

MarLIN “user-defined search” interface

Using “species” option to search MarLIN ...

Example MarLIN search results

Lists of titles

Dataset “thumbnail + links” pages

example full metadata record

ASDD metadata gateway - distributed searching

New Divisional Data Warehouse (under development)

• Builds on a prototype (“SQuID”) developed in 1999-2000

• Designed to hold variety of data types - biological, physical and chemical oceanographic data; photographic data; ships’ tracks; etc. etc.

• Uses CAAB taxon codes for internal biological data handling

• Will be hyperlinked to “MarLIN” for access to relevant metadata record/s

• All records geo- and time- referenced using Oracle spatial options and date fields, interface will use MapInfo tools to display and query the data

• Concept is for one DB at present, upgradeable to multiple databases if needed in future

SQuID Data Model (under ongoing development)

Example SQuID search result - data types and locations

sample SQuID “atomic” level data

Summary - our system overview

CMR

Web-based search and display of

metadata(via MarLIN)

Dispersed resources

Taxonomic database

Web-based search and display of Australia-wide

metadata(via ASDD gateway)

Other Organisations’ metadatabases

MarLIN-ASDD

connection

future options & plans ...

• Build “live” links to data in our data warehouse from MarLIN metadata records

• Possibly link multiple DBs / agencies’ data under a single search/display application

• Link “MarLIN” to international metadata clearinghouses e.g. FGDC (USA)

• Possibly link our agency’s data into a global OBIS

• Adopt emerging global standards for taxonomic IDs, keyword thesauri, etc.

• Additional population of metadata, data, and taxon definitions into our systems, as source material and resources are available

CSIRO Marine Research Data Centre

linked databases - CAAB, MarLIN and Divisional Data Warehouse

Data Centre website: http://www.marine.csiro.au/datacentre/

MarLIN: http://www.marine.csiro.au/dmr/database/marlin/

CAAB: http://www.marine.csiro.au/caab/