High-impact data and products to improve Ocean biodiversity knowledge
As a community, OBIS mobilizes data-derived knowledge to make the Ocean a better place on Earth. OBIS has led global marine biodiversity efforts for more than two decades, building a solid, open, science-based infrastructure that delivers reliable and fully actionable data and products. With its data and products, the OBIS community supports global biodiversity frameworks and evidence-based decision-making, advances marine science, and improves global knowledge of our Ocean. Built on Open Science, FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), and CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics) principles, the data and solutions provided by the OBIS community are ready to create maximum impact.
From data to decisions: the OBIS value chain
The OBIS value chain is fit-for-purpose, optimized to increase stakeholders’ uptake and designed to maximize impact. It is articulated around two operational priority areas: data mobilization and data application. The first priority area encourages data providers to contribute to OBIS, providing them with the skills, tools, and motivation—trough robust attribution—to deliver data that matches the community’s standards and quality requirements. The second priority area focuses on data qualification, quality control, data actionability, decision-support tools and expertise to produce insights that can be mobilized and integrated into decision processes, policy assessment and evaluations, global frameworks, but also education and outreach.
The OBIS value chain: from data mobilization to societal impact.
Supporting global biodiversity policy frameworks
OBIS is involved with two major global policy frameworks as a global scientific community: the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) and the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) agreement.
OBIS provides the data to support decisions and monitor the progress of four KMGBF Targets and one 2050 Goal:
>Target 3 (Conserve 30% of Land, Waters and Seas): OBIS directly contributes to marine biodiversity identification within Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and areas under Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs), supports marine panning and efficiency assessments of implemented marine conservation actions, contributes to bridging knowledge gaps (from taxonomic and area-specific to policy-relevant gaps)
> Target 6 (Reduce the Introduction of Invasive Alien Species by 50% and Minimize Their Impact): OBIS supports early detection of invasive species using molecular, cutting-edge technologies such as environmental DNA (eDNA) and providing a ready-to-implement framework to equip authorities with a proven and tested decision-support tool.
> Target 8 (Minimize the Impacts of Climate Change on Biodiversity and Build Resilience): OBIS provides long-time series of marine observation data to track climate change’s impact on species distribution (e.g. topicalization) and habitats (e.g. resilience), contributing to plan and assess Ocean conservation measures.
> Target 20 (Strengthen Capacity-Building, Technology Transfer, and Scientific and Technical Cooperation for Biodiversity): OBIS provides authorities with transposable and operational data frameworks that include knowledge and technology transfers covering the whole data chain, from field sampling protocols to data processing and advanced bioinformatic pipelines. The constant efforts of the OBIS community to increase marine data literacy and uptake at local, national, and regional levels, especially towards the younger generation of scientists, also contribute to building and improving marine biodiversity observation capacity and uptake, creating a long-lasting positive impact.
> Target 21 (Ensure That Knowledge Is Available and Accessible To Guide Biodiversity Action): Data provided by the OBIS community follows the FAIR, CARE and Open Science principles, ensuring equal access and stable availability. OBIS provides authorities with essential marine biodiversity intelligence and the knowledge to apply it to build and track the progress of local, national, regional and global biodiversity strategies.
> Goal A (Protect and Restore): The OBIS community as a whole is deeply committed to mobilizing data-related knowledge to support and assess marine biodiversity conservation actions and initiatives. OBIS has been focusing on bridging the uptake gap between available data and actionable insights by creating user-friendly tools and solutions designed to be accessible to a wide range of users, including non-experts.
OBIS support to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
With troves of datasets related to high sea areas, The OBIS Community is well-positioned to support the upcoming marine biodiversity data needs of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) agreement. OBIS is particularly fit to:
- Contribute to monitoring Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) with its reliable, independent, standardized, and quality-controlled occurrence data.
- Support high sea Area-Based Management Tools (ABMTs) and other spatial planning measures
- Contribute to environmental impact assessments (EIAs)
- Provide and develop science-to-policy interfaces for decision-making
OBIS is connected to major global biodiversity initiatives and projects
The OBIS Community is well anchored in the global biodiversity data landscape and actively collaborates with major initiatives to enhance interoperability, data sharing and accessibility across domains, realms and platforms.
OBIS connections to major global biodiversity initiatives and projects
European Union- and Flanders-funded projects
OBIS contributes data, tools, and expertise to large regional and global initiatives, such as the EU-funded EMODnet, MPA Europe, MARCO-BOLO, BioEcoOcean and eDNAqua-Plan projects, as well as PacMAN, a project funded by Flanders UNESCO Science Trust Fund (FUST) and the General Trust Fund (FUT).
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
OBIS and GBIF collaborate closely to improve the accessibility of marine biodiversity data and ensure it is part of the broader global biodiversity knowledge system. The two initiatives have developed a joint strategy and an action plan to deepen their collaboration through increased shared capacity-building activities and reinforced technical cooperation. Since they started collaborating, OBIS and GBIF have jointly developed Integrated Publishing Toolkits, encouraged the adoption of interoperable standards such as Darwin Core, and promoted integrating eDNA and DNA-derived data to their platforms through guides and tools such as the Metabardcoding Data Toolkit.
Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS)
The OBIS Community contributes to developing and operationalizing biodiversity-related Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) defined by GOOS to ensure that biodiversity is a core part of global ocean monitoring. OBIS ensure that EOVs are supported by standardized, quality-controlled and FAIR datasets, acting as a data integration and dissemination platform within the GOOS framework. OBIS and GOOS also collaborate to identify data gaps in biodiversity data, including identifying under-sampled regions or ecosystems, as well as, setting requirements for and coordinating observation networks.
Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON) of the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON)
OBIS works closely with MBON to develop Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) under GEO BON and integrate them into GOOS’ EOVs framework, supporting their transition from pilot studies to globally implemented observations. OBIS and MBON also collaborate to reinforce global data collection and management capacity by sharing best practices and resources and co-developed partnerships.
Ocean Data and Information System
OBIS is one of the key pillars of ODIS, helping build a federated digital Ocean ecosystem to support the UN Ocean Decade, with full interoperability across platforms and disciplines.
Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean (POGO)
The OBIS Community supports POGO’s mission to drive innovation in ocean observation technologies, improve Ocean-related outreach and increase capacity development, particularly in Large Ocean States and the Global South.
Empowering local actors through capacity building to increase global contributions
OBIS-led capacity-building activities empower citizens, scientists, institutions, and countries worldwide to better collect, manage, share, and use marine biodiversity data. Through audience-adapted hands-on workshops, tools, training, and resource-sharing, the OBIS community increases the number of qualified data contributors who are able to publish their datasets on the platform. This creates a double positive impact: at the global level, more qualified data contributors means OBIS benefits from previously unpublished data, bridging existing ocean biodiversity data and knowledge gaps; at a local level, data providers, including citizens and communities, acquire new skills, become global marine biodiversity data contributors, gaining visibility and recognition through attribution. In the Global South, OBIS capacity-building activities contribute to fighting epistemic injustice by empowering local researchers and institutions, as well as local and Indigenous communities, with skills to efficiently publish their biodiversity data on global platforms, gaining visibility and recognition while maintaining ownership.
OBIS, a future-facing initiative to improve our knowledge of the Ocean
In a fast-changing environment where climate change and biodiversity loss can outrun scientific knowledge, OBIS is a stable anchor for marine biodiversity knowledge. OBIS is a dynamic, agile and responsive community that delivers the data, tools and solutions needed to tackle the most pressing issues in Ocean biodiversity. OBIS remains at the forefront of innovation, integrating the latest technological developments in biodiversity observations, such as eDNA, and advanced integration approaches, such as models and forecasting tools. The OBIS Community aims to maximize the impact of marine biodiversity data and deliver the most relevant, fit-for-purpose insights that support science, conservation, education and policy. Thanks to its global network of regional and thematic nodes, the OBIS community can rapidly detect and respond to emerging needs from researchers, decision-makers, and citizens, as well as deliver high-impact data and products supporting real-world action.