Search  |  Using OBIS  |  About the Data  |  About OBIS  |  News  | 
 
Advanced Search Browse by taxonomic groups
 
How to cite OBIS data
   
Notes to users
OBIS Organization

OBIS contact information

The OBIS secretariat is hosted by Rutgers University, Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences. You'll find us on

71 Dudley Road
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
USA

Tel: +1 732 932 6555; Fax: +1 732 932 8578

Contact us by email through data@iobis.org, help@iobis.org or admin@iobis.org.

OBIS organisation

OBIS was established by the Census of Marine Life program (www.coml.org). It is an evolving strategic alliance of people and organizations sharing a vision to make marine biogeographic data, from all over the world, freely available over the World Wide Web. It is not a project or program, and is not limited to data from CoML-related projects. Any organization, consortium, project or individual may contribute to OBIS. OBIS provides, on an ‘open access’ basis through the World Wide Web:

  • taxonomically and geographically resolved data on marine life and the ocean environment;
  • interoperability with similar databases;
  • software tools for data exploration and analysis.

OBIS was one of the earliest Associate Members of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (www.gbif.org) which publishes data on all species. OBIS is a very active participant in GBIF activities, and one of the largest publishers of data to GBIF, reflecting its role as a specialist network for marine species. GBIF recommends that marine data are first published through OBIS, because OBIS can add special value (e.g. depth) and will manage the subsequent publication of data through GBIF. This also avoids duplication of data being separately published to GBIF and OBIS.

In June 2009, OBIS was adopted by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, as one of its activities under its International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) programme. Since then, OBIS and IODE staff members have been working on making this integration a reality. Up to the end of 2010, the OBIS Governing Board will remain active, and oversee the completion of OBIS' obligations in the framework of the Census of Marine Life. At the end of 2010, OBIS will be governed completely as an IODE activity.

Who can join OBIS?
How is OBIS governed?
What do all the acronyms mean?
Who has contributed to OBIS?
What were the origins of OBIS?
What has been published related to OBIS?
How do I cite this web page description of OBIS?
How can students use OBIS for learning?
Are there third party tools for working with ArcGIS and OBIS data?

Who can join OBIS?

Any organization, consortium, project or individual may contribute to OBIS. Contributions typically take the form of publishing data through OBIS, or providing software tools. The data may be published through an on-line connection from another database or be located on the OBIS server at a Regional OBIS Node or at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. To join OBIS contact the Chair of the OBIS International Committee or the Executive Director in the first instance. Technical aspects of connecting to the OBIS website will then be planned.

How is OBIS governed?

OBIS is managed by a Governing Board with advice from the CoML Steering Committee. The OBIS Governing Board replaced the International Committee in 2008. The Executive Director reports to the Governing Board, coordinates OBIS activities, and manages the Secretariat and Portal.

After a period of transition in 2010, the tasks of the Governing Board will be taken over by IOC/IODE bodies. The governance of OBIS will become the task of the IODE Assembly, and ultimately the IOC General Assembly. Technical advice will be provided by a Group of Experts for OBIS, under the aegis of IODE.

What is the OBIS Governing Board?
What are Regional OBIS Nodes (RON)?
What is the OBIS Managers Committee?

What is the OBIS Governing Board?

The OBIS Governing Board (GB) is composed of invited expert scientists. The GB decides OBIS policy and strategy. It actively fosters OBIS development through data sharing and exchange, making software available, and supervising the OBIS portal development. It may establish working groups, for example to deal with technical data management issues. The GB is responsible for ensuring that contributors have expertise in their field, and have taken reasonable steps to ensure the quality of their data and/or software.

Members of the GB are selected as individuals to represent the constituencies of OBIS, including data providers, software developers, and regions of the world. They bring their expertise, knowledge, and connections to OBIS, and it is anticipated that they would be in regular contact with people and organizations who are potential users of, and contributors to, OBIS. Members do not represent their institutions. The GB elects the OBIS Chair from its members.

Who is on the OBIS Governing Board?

  • Jim Baker, chair
  • Serge Garcia
  • Patricio Bernal
  • Dr Fábio Lang da Silveira (as Chair of the OBIS Manager's Committee), University of Sao Pãolo, Brazil
  • Dr J. Frederick Grassle (Keeper of the Sloan Foundation grant & ex-Chair CoML Scientific Steering Committee), Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA
  • Dan Laffoley, Vice-Chair - Marine for IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas
  • Mark Costello
  • Eric Gilman

Ex officio

  • Dr Edward Vanden Berghe (Executive Director), Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

What are Regional OBIS Nodes (RONs)?

Regional OBIS Nodes (RONs) are organizations that have committed to a continued support of OBIS within a geographic and/or national region using resources they have obtained. This will include serving data online and developing a data provider and end-user community. Some RON will provide tools, different language versions of the OBIS website, and/or provide mirror sites for the OBIS portal.

What is the OBIS Managers Committee?

The OBIS MC is composed of the Manager of each Regional OBIS Node. The present OBIS MC will be transformed in the IODE Steering Group for OBIS by the end of 2010. Members include

Discussions are ongoing with several more organisations to start a Regional OBIS node:

Former OBIS MC members are:

  • Robert Branton, Canada
  • Vishwas Chavan, India
  • Song Sun, China,
  • Edward Vanden Berghe, Europe
  • Alicja Mosbauer, Australia
    •  

Who has contributed to OBIS?

People, organizations and projects that provide data, software, expertise, or other resources to OBIS can be recognized as “Contributors to OBIS”.

People
Data Sources
Data Providers
Tool providers
Partners
Sponsors

People

Many scientists have contributed to the development of OBIS, including those on its Managers Committeeits various other active and past committees, and working in its Regional Nodes, Portal and Secretariat. Others have contributed by providing data, software tools and know-how to OBIS; while more have provided invaluable feedback on their experiences and expectations using OBIS. This feedback has been very helpful in planning improvements to the OBIS portal and website.

Data Sources

OBIS Data Sources are the authors, editors, and/or organisations that have published one or more datasets through OBIS. They would be the owners or custodians of the data. The data are served through an OBIS Data Provider who may or may not be the same organization or person.

Data Providers

OBIS Data Providers are organizations and persons that serve data through the OBIS portal. These data maybe held by themselves or served on behalf of others.

Tool providers

OBIS Tools are software that operates through the OBIS portal (e.g. mapping tools), is used in OBIS data management, or that can be downloaded by users. Examples include: CMR C-squares Mapper; Kansas Geological Survey (KGS) Mapper; ACON Mapper; VLIZ maps of Countries (Exclusive Economic Zones), and of Sea and Ocean areas.

Partners

OBIS Partners are organisations with whom OBIS cooperates to mutually support each others goals and activities. They include:

Sponsors

OBIS sponsors provided significant funding that has contributed to OBIS development. This may be direct funding, such as from:

Indirect financial support is equally significant. It includes support from the institutions supporting the Portal and Secretariat, Regional OBIS Nodes, other major Data Providers, and salaries of committee members. These include: 

What were the origins of OBIS?

The initial idea for OBIS developed from a CoML-sponsored Benthic Census Meeting held in October 1997. Recommendations from this meeting led to the establishment of a prototype OBIS Web site by J. F. Grassle, K. Stocks and Y. Zhang at Rutgers in 1998 to demonstrate the initial OBIS concept. The first OBIS International Workshop was held in November 1999 in Washington, D.C., and in 2000 the International Committee was formed to govern its global development. In 2000, the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP) requested proposals for OBIS projects and funded eight through support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Office of Naval Research (ONR) and National Science Foundation (NSF). A more restricted NOPP competition in 2002 resulted in an additional OBIS project on Marine Mammals, Turtles, and Birds (called OBIS-SEAMAP), and an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship to Karen Stocks at the San Diego Supercomputing Center resulted in the OBIS linked database SeamountsOnline. Subsequently many additional datasets were published through OBIS, including the Census of Marine Life Initial Projects. See OBIS News webpage for further developments.

What has been published related to OBIS?

Please send additions to the list of OBIS related publications to OBIS obissupport@marine.rutgers.edu.

How do I cite this web page description of OBIS?

The above and other text on the OBIS website has been developed over several years by several people, and continues to be edited with updates and to answer questions we receive. It may be cited as: Costello M.J., Stocks K., Zhang Y., Grassle J.F., Fautin D.G. (March 2007). About the Ocean Biogeographic Information System. Retrieved www.iobis.org on [date].

How can students use OBIS for learning?

OBIS is a source of data and information, and provides links to other authoritative resources. It also allows students to develop skills in using online resources, descriminating between authoritative and less scholarly sources, learn about the strengths and weaknesses of using primary data that are only a sample of the potential data, and using this to infer the distributions of species. Comparison with secondary sources of information is encouraged.
A number of educational resources, including image library, lesson plans on different levels and links to other educational web sites have been compiled on these pages.

Are there third party tools for working with ArcGIS and OBIS data?

Marine Geospatial Ecology Tools (MGET), developed at Duke University, is an open source geoprocessing toolbox designed for coastal and marine researchers. MGET includes a tool that allows OBIS users to extract species occurrence records directly to ArcGIS for analysis and visualization. Using the DiGIR communications protocol, the tool queries the OBIS server at Rutgers University, downloads records in XML format, and writes them as georeferenced points in ArcGIS format. The user may specify a filter expression that scopes the query to desired locations, taxons, time periods, contributor organizations, and so on. The tool may also be used with other servers that support DiGIR. A detailed example can be found here.

MGET also includes analysis tools that may be applied to records downloaded from OBIS. At a Census of Marine Life meeting in February 2009, the MGET development team presented two example applications. The first example demonstrated how to visualize cetacean species diversity off the east coast of the United States by calculated Shannon's diversity index for each cell of a 1° grid from cetacean points downloaded from OBIS. The results suggest that the continental shelf break is an important region for cetacean biodiversity. A detailed example can be found here.

The second example demonstrated how to create a range map for Atlantic spotted dolphin (Stenella frontalis) using OBIS points and remotely-sensed images of sea surface temperature, chlorophyll density, and bathymetry downloaded from NOAA and NASA. Using tools from MGET, the presenters matched up the points to the oceanographic images by date, overlaid the points on the images, extracted the image values to the points, and fitted a statistical model that estimated the probability of dolphin presence given oceanographic conditions. The presenters evaluated the model's performance using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis and showed how to create a binary range map by applying the statistical model across every pixel of the oceanographic images. This procedure classified each pixel as either habitat or not habitat, yielding a simple but effective summary of where Atlantic spotted dolphin is likely to be found. A detailed example can be found here.

These represent just two of the many kinds analyses that may be done with MGET and OBIS data. For more ideas about how you could apply these tools in your research, please contact the MGET and OBIS teams at mget-help@nicholas.duke.edu and obissuport@iobis.org.

 

Please provide us with feedback
 
OBIS is a project of the       
 
 
Last modified by Edward Vanden Berghe on 14 May 2009