News
Launching: The GOOS BioEco portal
metadata BioEco global ocean observing
GOOS has officially announced the public launch of the BioEco portal, a freely available, open access platform that provides metadata and information on global ocean observing programmes that monitor Biological and Ecosystem (BioEco) Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs)
The OBIS user survey
data user
Have you downloaded or used data from the OBIS database for your research, projects or publications? Then we want to hear from you!
eDNA expeditions in full swing
UNESCO World Heritage sites citizen science
OBIS joined the marine programme of the World Heritage Centre to embark on a new UNESCO global citizen science initiative, called eDNA Expeditions in marine World Heritage sites, aiming to measure marine biodiversity, across 25 UNESCO World Heritage sites, while also measuring possible impacts of climate change on distribution patterns of marine organisms. The project will focus on fish and other marine vertebrates, with special attention to vulnerable and endangered species as specified through the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, as well as those reflected in World Heritage sites’ Outstanding Universal Value.
10th Session of the OBIS steering group, 17-20 May 2022 (Online)
OBIS Steering Group Meeting report
Forty-four participants from 23 countries representing 26 OBIS nodes participated in the 10th session of the IODE Steering Group for OBIS (SG-OBIS) on 17-20 May 2022. The executive summary and meeting report are now online.
An unconventional workshop in these unprecedented times
data marine biodiversity interoperability
A recent workshop brought together international participants to mobilize existing biodiversity data, advance interoperability, and build community. The workshop curriculum is modeled after The Carpentries and available for anyone to reuse.
Elizabeth Lawrence joined the OBIS secretariat
OBIS training officer secretariat
We are glad to announce that Dr Elizabeth Lawrence has joined our OBIS secretariat on 16 March 2022. In the coming year she will develop training resources to support researchers and data managers to manage and publish data from biological observing systems into OBIS following internationally agreed standards and best practices.
Recently published datasets
Use cases
Reconstructing ocean biodiversity hotspots of the Phanerozoic
global diversity ecological saturation diversification model palaeogeography
Is there a limit to global biodiversity in our oceans? This recent study published in Nature using data from OBIS sheds some new insight into this controversial topic in evolutionary ecology and has led to the authors proposing a new hypothesis, the ‘diversity hotspots hypothesis’.
Detecting life in the deep-sea: a glimpse of the top predator, the Yokozuna Slickhead in Japanese waters.
eDNA metabarcoding baited camera marine protected area
New insights and video footage of possibly the largest deep-sea-endemic predatory teleost fish species, the Yokozuna Slickhead, using a combination of eDNA metabarcoding and baited camera observations, at depths of 2000 m. OBIS occurrence data contributed to the distributional comparison of this species to the only other deep-sea-endemic teleost fish species with total length over 2 m, the Giant Grenadier, Albatrossia pectoralis.
Predicting global distribution and population connectivity – the predatory broadnose sevengill shark as an example.
environmental niche modeling habitat suitability Notorynchus cepedianus
Presence data sourced from OBIS, amongst other repositories and literature sources, contributed to predicting the global possible suitable habitat for a highly mobile predator shark, the broadnose sevengill shark, based on environmental niche modeling.
Discovering life in extreme environments with deep-sea equipment
acoustic imaging human occupied vehicles remote operated vehicles autonomous underwater vehicles
The development of deep-sea equipment has allowed researchers to start to unveil the vast biodiversity and ecosystems in the extreme deep-sea environments. Discoveries of deep-sea species, based on occurrences from the OBIS database, were compared to the global distribution of deep-sea equipment. The results suggest a correlation to the regions of extensive species discovery and the locational distribution of advanced deep-sea equipment.
Giant manta ray distribution in the western North Atlantic Ocean
Mobulidae Mobula birostris conservation species distribution modelling
Species distribution modeling (SDM) as a tool to predict the probability of occurrence for giant manta rays in the western North Atlantic Ocean. The data from this study is based on occurrence records and decades of sighting data from OBIS and an array of other data sources. These distribution predictions will ultimately allow for better protection and conservation of the threatened giant manta ray.
Through the eyes of a Cretaceous crab
Brachyura visual systems predator
By extracting depth data of extant benthic and pelagic Brachyuran crabs from the OBIS database, along with habitat and lifestyle information, authors were able to interpret the fossil species examined herein, to have been an active swimmer, most likely hunting and predating on pelagic comma shrimps.
