AlgaeBase is a database of information on algae that includes terrestrial, marine and freshwater organisms. For the convenience of marine botanists, we have included the sea-grasses (about 100 species), even though they are flowering plants.
The Government of Canada, Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) supports OBIS through in-kind funding for staff time to manage the OBIS Canada node and contribute datasets.
The Richard Lounsbery Foundation has awarded OBIS a grant to develop new tools for integrating molecular and genomic data into OBIS.
LifeWatch was established as part of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructure (ESFRI) and can be seen as a virtual laboratory for biodiversity research. The concept behind LifeWatch was developed in the 1990s and early 2000s, with the support of EU Networks of Excellence related to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. This - amongst others - included the MarBEF project, which was the driving project behind the creation of both the European node of the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (EurOBIS) and European Register of Marine Species (ERMS) - the predecessor of the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS).
Belgium contributes to LifeWatch with varied and complementary “in-kind” contributions. These are implemented under the form of long lasting projects by different research centers and universities spread over the country and supported by each respective political authority. Within LifeWatch, the Flanders Marine Institute - host of the European node of the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (EurOBIS) and the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) - has taken on the responsibility to develop the LifeWatch Species Information Backbone (LW-SIBb). This Backbone also includes OBIS, allowing people to combine services spanning e.g. WoRMS & OBIS in one go.
Contributions:
The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC) /OBIS signed a collaboration agreement with the aims to improve the volume and quality of biodiversity information available to policy makers for conservation and sustainable use of the ocean’s biological resources.
Contributions:
http://imos.org.au/facilities/animaltracking/; https://members.oceantrack.org/
Ocean Tracking Network (OTN) and the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS), Animal Tracking Facility (ATF) are collaborators. Both in exchange of data and receiver deployments shared efforts/equipment.
Many tests that check the quality of biological data are informal, adhoc and under-applied and therefore can miss errors The TDWG Data Quality Interest Group has constructed a suite of tests and assertions that can be applied to a single record or a set of records. Examples are invalid or incomplete dates, geospatial outliers or bad coordinates, suspect depths or elevations, unknown or missing taxa values. Work will continue on implementing selected tests or in some cases, formalise the tests that OBISAU already does to validate data before publication.
http://obis.org/2016/12/15/goosgeobonobis/
Three major initiatives (GOOS, OBIS and GEOBON MBON) signed a collaboration agreement to join efforts towards a sustained, coordinated global ocean system of marine biological and ecosystem observations to support management decisions and address relevant science and societal needs. OBIS plays a key role in fostering wider data sharing, curation and aggregation in order to streamline the feeding of integrated and quality controlled datasets into models and forecasts.
Contributions:
The aim of a World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) is to provide an authoritative and comprehensive list of names of marine organisms, including information on synonymy. While the highest priority goes to valid names, other names in use are included so that this register can serve as a guide to interpret taxonomic literature.
Contributions: