Transcript Towards a World Register of Marine Species

A World Register of Marine
Species (WoRMS) for use in
marine and biodiversity
data management
www.marinespecies.org
Ward Appeltans, Mark J. Costello, Bart Vanhoorne,
Francisco Hernandez, Jan Mees, Edward Vanden Berghe
Flanders Marine Institute
University of Auckland; Leigh Marine Laboratory
Rutgers University; Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences
Overview
Introduction
Progress
In practice
Services
Summary & future
Introduction
WoRMS builds on experience in developing the European Register of Marine
Species
WoRMS will provide the first authoritative list of names of all marine and brackish
water species world-wide
The Aphia database, developed and maintained by the Flanders Marine Institute
(VLIZ), serves as the IT platform for WoRMS. VLIZ commits itself in long-term
hosting and management of WoRMS
Currently well over 100 world leading taxonomists are contributing to WoRMS of
which many are using Aphia to edit the content of WoRMS
WoRMS is the marine contribution to the Species2000 & Integrated Taxonomic
Information System (ITIS)’ Catalogue of Life, and will collaborate with the Global
Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) & Encyclopedia of Life (EoL)’s Global
Names Architecture. It will serve as the taxonomic backbone of GBIF, EoL and the
international Ocean Biogeographic Information System (iOBIS)
WoRMS is an “initiative” that is underway
Progress
Statistics (March 2008)
• 137 taxonomists
• 220,000 taxa
• 175,000 species; 119,500 valid species (~50% of all marine species)
• 5,200 pictures
• 45,457 literature sources
• 2,414 specimens
• 14,000,000 distribution records in OBIS
e.g. all fish
ERMS
MASDEA &
TISBE
#RSDs & GSDs
Progress
14 global species databases
6 regional species databases
World databases of
• Porifera
• Proseriata and Kalyptorhynchia Rhabditophora
• Mysids – Nemys
• Nematodes – Nemys
• Cumacea
• Brachiopoda
• Phoronida
• Pycnogonida
• Ophiuroidea
• Euphausiacea
• Tanaidacea
• Isopoda
• Pisces
• Polychaeta
•European Register of Marine Species
(ERMS)
•Register of Antarctic Marine Species
(RAMS)
•North Atlantic Register for Marine Species
(NARMS)
•Taxonomic Information System for the
Belgian Coastal Area (TISBE)
•Marine Species Database for Eastern Africa
(MASDEA)
•North Sea Benthos Project/Survey
(NSBP/NSBS)
•
To come: Amphipoda, Unesco Register of
Marine Organisms
•To come: Arctic Register of Marine Species
One database, many collections
All names stored locally in Aphia database
Relational database
Aphia database structure (MS SQL)
Data content
•Scientific and common names in an hierarchical classification
•Nomenclatural status: valid and invalid synonyms
•Authority of names
•links to full-text references – if available (e.g. original publication, sources of
synonymy, etc)
•Specimen information, with identification history (incl. type locality, type location,
etc…)
•Distribution records (incl. depth, abundance, time, source)
•Images
•Other information: environment, fossil, feeding type, …
•Deep links to ITIS, MARLIN etc
Governance
Editorial board
•Database Management Team (VLIZ, OBIS, SeaLifeBase) prepares data for bulk
upload
•After proper identification, taxonomic experts and have online access to remotely
manage (add/edit/delete) the entire content of WoRMS
•Edit rights are assigned based on a taxon rank in the classification (e.g. phylum,
class, order, family of a particular taxon…)
Governance
Steering committee & responsibilities through present
involvement in other organisations
Mark J. Costello 1,2,3,5,8,16 *
Edward Vanden Berghe 1,2,3,5,8 *
Nicolas Bailly 1,3,5,6,12
Philippe Bouchet 1,3,4,1,13
Charles Griffiths 2,15
Michael D. Guiry 1,2,3,5,11
Ward Appeltans 1,2,3
Maria (Deng) Palomares 10
David (Paddy) J. Patterson 1,2,4,8,9
Gary C. B. Poore 2,14
Tony Rees 2
Gary Rosenberg 2,4,13
Sabine Stöhr 7
* WoRMS coordinator/leader
European Register of Marine Species
Ocean Biogeographic Information System
Society for the Management of European Biodiversity
Data
International Code of Zoological Nomenclature
Species 2000
Catalogue of Life
Echinodermata
Encyclopaedia of Life
International Census of Marine Microbes
SeaLifeBase
AlgaeBase
FishBase
Mollusca
Crustacea, Crustacea.net
African species
International Association for Biological Oceanography
Website
Website main portal
> 6,000 unique visitors
and > 300,000 hits per
month
(but not yet widely
advertised)
Website
Website subportals
Website
Website search interface
e.g. all species in Holothuriidae
Website
Website search interface
Database download
MS Access database
Monthly archives
Request forms are
available online
Password restricted
Webservices : match tool
Aphia taxon match tool
Webservices: SOAP requests
WoRMS web service
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
get the AphiaID for your taxon
check the spelling of your taxa
get the authority for your taxa
get the full classification for your taxa
resolve all your invalid names to valid names
match your species list
resolve a common name to a scientific name
End users
Examples of end-users
Data systems
• GBIF, OBIS, Species 2000, EoL, SeaLifeBase, ZooBank
Government science policy agencies that requested a copy of the database
• E.g. European Environment Agency, International Council for Exploration of
the Sea, Rijkswaterstaat (Netherlands), Nature Protection Directorate
(Italy), L'Inventaire national du Patrimoine naturel (France), IFREMER,
Federal Environmental Agency (Germany), Akvaplan-NIVA (Norway),
National Cancer Institute, Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (Greece),
Stazione Zoologica Napoli (Italy), Joint Nature Conservation Committee (UK)
[already users of European Register of Marine Species]
Individuals through website
• scientists, students, naturalists, ecological consultants, environmental
managers
Summary
What is WoRMS?
Standard nomenclature for marine species data management
Taxonomically authoritative, expert-edited, sustainable, register of
marine species
Involving taxonomic expertise at global, regional and national levels
so as to provide national context
Interoperable with existing and emerging species name registers and
information systems
Hosting gap taxa at Flanders Marine Institute’s Aphia database
Added-value name services for biodiversity and marine data centres,
organisations and individuals
Next step in taxonomic quality control for ocean biodiversity
informatics infrastructure for research, resource management, and
education
Developing a global ocean biodiversity informatics community from
taxon experts to end-users
First step in having data on all marine species distribution,
identification, biology and ecology online
Future
•Our goal is 200,000 valid species names by 2009, reaching near completion
by 2010 (~240-250,000 species).
•WoRMS will fill marine gaps in regional and global expert-edited species
nomenclatures
•Enchance more open-access quality controlled data
•Improve online data exploration, visualization, and analysis
•WoRMS will harmonise species name registers for data quality control with
GBIF & EoL (ECAT, GNA), OBIS, Species 2000 (CoL) etc.
Thanks to our expert editors
Editorial board affiliations (on 15 December 2007):
Check online: http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=editors
Smithsonian Institution; National Museum of Natural History – USA
Nova Southeastern University; Oceanographic Centre – USA
University of Maine; Darling Marine Center – USA
California Academy of Sciences – USA
Florida Museum of Natural History – USA
Center for Systematic Biology and Evolution; Academy of Natural Sciences – USA
Museum Victoria – Australia
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research – Australia
Institute for Sea Fisheries – Germany
Swedish Museum of Natural History – Sweden
Zoologisch Museum Amsterdam – Netherlands
Natural History Museum – UK
Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle – France
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences – Belgium
Universiteit Hasselt – Belgium
Universiteit Gent – Belgium
…
Thanks to our sponsors and
supporters
Sponsors
Flanders Marine Institute
MarBEF network of excellence
Ocean Biogeographic Information System
University of Auckland
Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Richard Lounsbery Foundation
Supporters
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission’s IODE (UNESCO)
International Association of Biological Oceanography (a member of IUBS)
International Code on Zoological Nomenclature’s ZooBank
International Union of Biological Sciences
Census of Marine Life
International Census of Marine Microbes
Encyclopaedia of Life
SeaLifeBase, WorldFish
FishBase
Species 2000, Catalogue of Life