OBIS Australia – Regional Node for the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS)

1. OBIS Australia – Regional Node for the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) OBIS Australia is an operational component of the Census of Marine Life and a partnership between the National Oceans Office (Department of the Environment and Heritage) and CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research

2. OBIS – a component of the Census of Marine Life • The Census of Marine Life – a decade-long international collaborative project (2000-2010) to census what lives in the oceans; also... • what did live in the oceans (historical data – e.g. before the impact of human activities such as fishing, etc.) • what will live in the oceans (forecasts, e.g. effects of fishing, climate change...)

3. OBIS – a component of the Census of Marine Life • The Census of Marine Life – a decade-long international collaborative project (2000-2010) to census what lives in the oceans; also... • what did live in the oceans (historical data – e.g. before the impact of human activities such as fishing, etc.) • what will live in the oceans (forecasts, e.g. effects of fishing, climate change...) • OBIS – The Ocean Biogeographic Information System – has been established to provide the information management infrastructure for CoML data – now, and into the future.

4. OBIS Goal and Challenges • OBIS Goal... • “To be the primary, authoritative source of data on the distribution of marine species in the world...” (extract from CoML Research Report, 2005) • Key Challenges... • Technical: To create a system capable of accessing, and making available, all the relevant information (plus useful visualisation and analysis tools), for universal access over the internet • Motivational: To promote the benefits of data sharing, and to build an international community of marine species data custodians willing to share their data via the OBIS network • Practical: To provide assistance to data custodians to enable them to connect to the network, and to assist potential users of the data to successfully access it.

5. Addressing OBIS Goal and Challenges • Mechanism adopted to address all three aspects... • 2002-2004:OBIS International Portal (Rutgers University, USA) • 2005 onwards: International Portal, plus global network of Regional OBIS Nodes • Each Regional Node has volunteered to progress OBIS goals within their particular region of responsibility. Regional OBIS Nodes – as at December 2005 (China, Japan to be added in 2006)

6. OBIS Australia • OBIS Australia – launched today (December 2005) – sponsored by CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, the Department of Heritage and Environment (National Oceans Office), and the U.S. Sloan Foundation • Providing a route for data custodians to connect their holdings to the OBIS network, and for data users to access that data

7. OBIS Australia Significance • Launch of OBIS Australia marks a new phase in: • Data availability – more agencies will be able to put marine species data on line (in many cases, for the first time) • Data integration – the OBIS system will do all the data interrogation and data integration for the user, and return an integrated result in a common format. • This will underpin new types of scientific research and “public interest” access to research data for the future.

8. OBIS Australia • Achievements to date • 100,000+ records made available from CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research into OBIS • Australian Museum community connected through OZCAM (150,000+ records) • Australian Antarctic Division first Australian data to be connected • OBIS Australia website: www.obis.org.au Credits: Kim Finney & Ian Poiner (formerly DEH, CMAR); Alicja Mosbauer, Amit Parashar (DEH); Paul Tildesley, Tony Rees, Philip Bohm (CMAR).