The document discusses SCAR-MarBIN and ANTABIF, which provide free and open access to Antarctic biodiversity data. Their goals are to exchange scientific data and results from Antarctica freely to promote international cooperation and adaptive conservation/management. They have developed web portals and databases containing over 850,000 visitors and 35 million data records downloaded. Their philosophy is to build an open electronic ecosystem offering access to taxonomic and geospatial biodiversity data using open source solutions.

1. SCAR-MarBIN and ANTABIF
Free and Open Access to Antarctic Biodiversity data
www.scarmarbin.be
www.biodiversity.aq

2. The background you need

3. Antarctic Environment
• Highest, driest windiest continent
• Fastest rates of change on the planet
• Heat sink in planet’s climate system
• High seasonality of light
• Marine: stable physico-chemical parameters
• Marine: low and constant temperature
• Marine: high productivity from phytoplancton

4. Antarctic (marine)
Biodiversity
• Highly adapted to extreme (stable) environment
• High level of endemism
• Marine biomass and biodiversity second to tropical
coral reefs
• Under-studied (especially the deep sea)
• Vulnerable to shifts!
• To understand these processes we need data

5. Antarctic Treaty
(our inspiration)
« In order to promote international cooperation in
scientific investigation in Antarctica, as provided for in
Article III (1c) of the Treaty, the Contracting Parties agree
that, to the greatest extent feasible and practicable: […]
Scientific observations and results from Antarctica shall be
exchanged and made freely available. »

6. “Exchanging” biodiversity
data
• science-based, adaptative conservation and
management
• testing fundamental theories
• consolidation of the community
• establish a benchmark for undisputed evidence of
change/shifts

7. Data availability
• what? where? when?
• widely disseminated, patchy, hardly accessible
• (expensive) data and expertise are vanishing
(fast!)

8. Information Networks

9. SCAR-MarBIN & ANTABIF
• www.scarmarbin.be: marine biodiversity information
network
• www.biodiversity.aq: biodiversity information facility
• Main funding: Belgian science Policy office
• International Polar Year 2007/08
• Census of Antarctic Marine Life
• Ocean Biogeographic Information System
• Global Biodiversity Information Network

10. General philosophy
• Build an electronic ecosystem
• Offer free and open access to data and technology
• Expose all the (biodiversity) data and metadata, in
multiple contexts
• Remain community-driven, and collaborative
• Adopt strong standardization
• Work for science, conservation, management

11. Who’s in?

12. Who *wants* to be in?

13. Tangible results

14. [results]: webportal (s)
taxonomy, biogeography
vizualisation
open access
850,000 visitors
6,950,000 hits
35,000,000 dld records
V2 coming up
ANTABIF coming up

15. [results]: taxonomic data
• The first RAMS
all taxa
• Board of 60+ editors
all species • Feeds WoRMS, CoL and EoL
valid species
• 17,098 taxa (RAMS)
• Building a dynamic RAS
• 24,248 taxa (RAS)
0 3,750 7,500 11,250 15,000

16. [results]: geospatial data
1,275,799 records
190 datasets
106 geodatasets
5,235 taxa
Feeds OBIS, GBIF
Downloadable
WebGIS
Webservices

17. 100% Open Source solutions
ANTABIF technological ecosystems:
Language: Ruby
Nuts and bolts
Design patterns: MVC-ORM
Framework: Rails(ActiveRecord) and YUI
Search engine: Full text (Elasticsearch-Lucene)
Database: PostGresql
GIS server: Geoserver
Spatial database: PostGIS
Mapping client: OpenLayers
Web services: RESTish (all resources)
Protocoles: DIF, dwcore, dwc archive, Tapir…etc
GBIF tools : HIT,IPT
OS: FreeBSD
Hosting: BBPF (ULB/VUB joint IT Center)
Metadata systems: GCMD (mirrored)

18. Projects

19. Antarctic Field Guides
afg.biodiversity.aq
afg.scarmarbin.be
• Identification aid
• Best available pictures
• Descriptions
• Dynamically built from various sources

20. Antarctic Field Guides

27. More Ideas... coming up
Georeferenced genetic data: CAML barcoding
Polar Macroscope working group: BiPolar analyses
Southern Ocean Biogeography Atlas: interactive Atlas
Getting the microbes in...

28. is this Science?
see the literature...

38. A vision I’d like to share

39. Data are discoverable,
open, linked, useful, and safe
Mark Parsons, PIC

40. Discoverable
Data should be accessible soon after collection
(online wherever possible) in a discovery portal such
as the Global Change Master Directory.
The importance of METADATA

41. Open
Open Data is a philosophy and practice requiring that
certain data are freely available to everyone, without
restrictions from copyright, patents or other
mechanisms of control.—Wikipedia
Anything else than Open slows down processes.

42. Linked
The term Linked Data is used to describe a method
of exposing, sharing, and connecting data [using] the
Web.—Wikipedia
Web2.0 philosophy.

43. Useful
Data from different projects, disciplines, and data
centers should be easily understood and used in
conjunction with each other in standard tools and
analysis frameworks
Data should be well described so to be useful for a
broad audience.

44. Interoperable
Metadata and data should be readily interchangeable
between different polar data systems to enable data
discovery across multiple portals.
So we stop reinventing the wheel all the time...

45. Safe
Safe from hackers, from obsolescence, from
undocumented change, from loss, and from the
ravages of time.
That’s quite a challenge!

46. Thanks for your
attention!
www.scarmarbin.be
www.biodiversity.aq
bruno.danis@scarmarbin.be
www.slideshare.net/scarmarbin