The document discusses biodiversity data from Antarctica and efforts to make it freely accessible online. It describes several initiatives including SCAR-MarBIN, ANTABIF, and GBIF that host Antarctic biodiversity data and enable users to access over 1 million records. Examples of applications for the data are also provided, such as modeling species distributions, examining responses to climate change, and designing targeted scientific expeditions. Challenges in fully realizing the potential of the data are also discussed.

1. IPY, IYB…:
freeing biodiversity data before the tipping point
Bruno Danis, Mélianie Raymond
www.gbif.org
www.biodiversity.aq

2. Antarctic Biodiversity
• Highly adapted to extreme environment
• High level of endemism
• Mostly marine
• Estimations: possibly 20.000 species
• Under-studied (especially the deep sea)
• Probably very sensitive to CC
• but where’s the data?

3. Data availability
• Art 3.1 of Antarctic Treaty
• what? where? when?
• widely disseminated, patchy, hardly
accessible
• (expensive) data and expertise are
vanishing!

4. Sharing biodiversity data
• science-based, adaptative
conservation and management
• testing fundamental theories
• consolidation of the community
• undisputed evidence of change/
shifts

5. SCAR-MarBIN
Marine Biodiversity Information Network
• www.scarmarbin.be
• Main funding: Belgian science Policy office
• International Polar Year 2007/08
• Census of Antarctic Marine Life
• Ocean Biogeographic Information System
• Global Biodiversity Information Network

6. ANTABIF
Antarctic Biodiversity Information Facility
• www.biodiversity.aq
• Funding: Belgian science Policy office
• International Year of Biodiversity
• Evolution and Biodiversity in Antarctica
• Australian Antarctic Division
• Global Biodiversity Information Network

7. GBIF
Global Biodiversity Information Facility
• www.gbif.org

8. GBIF’s Mandate
”To facilitate free and open access to biodiversity data
worldwide, via the Internet, to underpin scientific
research, conservation and sustainable development.”
GBIF is govt-initiated, and govt. funded, in
response to government agency needs in
biodiversity information access and
management;
GBIF is in service to science, as a global
‘public good’

9. What is GBIF?
GBIF is a global science/informatics
NOT a
research infrastructure:
database or
data
aggregator
• promoting global participation, linking up a global
network of participants (decentralised structure);
• enabling online publishing and sharing of
biodiversity data;
• Promoting development of data capture &
exchange standards;
• Building an informatics infrastructure;
• Building capacity;
• Catalysing development of analytical tools.

10. An intergovernmental initiative to share
biodiversity information
Currently:
• 54 countries;
• 44 International
Organisations

11. Data shared online via GBIF
(>201 million biodiversity records mapped to a 1 X 1 degree grid)

12. General philosophy
• Build a network
• Offer free and open access to data and technology
• Expose all the (biodiversity) data and metadata
• Remain community-driven
• Adopt strong standardization
• Work for science, conservation, management

13. Who’s in?

14. [results]: webportal
taxonomy, biogeography
vizualisation
open access
725,000 visitors
5,075,000 hits
32,000,000 dld records
V2alpha coming up

15. [results]: RAMS
• The first RAMS
• Board of 60+ editors
all taxa
all species
• Feeds WoRMS, CoL and
EoL
valid species
• 16,475 taxa
0 3,750 7,500 11,250 15,000
• 9,346 species

16. [results]: ANTOBIS
1,088,044 records
172 datasets
106 geodatasets
5,235 taxa
Feeds OBIS, GBIF
Downloadable
WebGIS
Webservices

17. [apps]: conservation
World Summit on Sustainable Development, 2001: “establish
comprehensive, effectively managed, and ecologically representative
networks of marine protected areas by 2012”
By 2010, collate relevant data for as many of the 11 priority regions
as possible (and other regions as appropriate), and characterise each
region in terms of biodiversity patterns and ecosystem processes,
physical environmental features and human activities.
By end 2011, submit proposals for candidate areas for protection to
the CCAMLR Scientific Committee.
By 2012, submit proposals on a representative system of Southern
Ocean MPAs to the CCAMLR Commission.

18. [apps]: modeling
Bivalve richness
10 environmental variables

19. [apps]: response to change
Cope or adapt
Move (deeper, south)
Go extinct
1976 - 2003
Over 2-fold decrease / 10 years
Over 2-fold increase / 10 years
Atkinson et al 2004

20. [apps]: where should we look?
Southern Limits Northern Limits
Over 2-fold decrease / 10 years
Over 2-fold increase / 10 years
Barnes Atkinson et al 2004
et al., 2009

21. [apps]: expedition design
Limopsis prediction
model fits actual data
map shows where to go

22. [apps]: expedition design
Limopsis prediction
model fits actual data
map shows where to go

23. !
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!
[apps]: data exploration
Strugnell J. British Antarctic Survey
!
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24. [apps]: gaps analysis
• taxonomy: some groups
under-represented
• spatial: deep-sea, Amundsen
sea,...
• time: paleontology
• huge datasets are missing

25. [projects] some examples
ANTABIF (www.biodiversity.aq)
SCAR-MarBIN V2 alpha
Antarctic Field Guides
Georeferenced genetic data
Polar Macroscope Synthesis
Antarctic Biodiversity Atlas

26. [main] Challenges
Quickly evolving needs from the community
Gaps in the data: taxonomy (microbes, kinetics??),
spatial, temporal, institutional, IPY data
Fear to publish (but happy to use)
The community needs to value the publication of data
Funding: hard to make a DB look sexy...

27. [vision] The future
• Polar Information Commons (PIC): framework for
long-term stewardship of polar data
• ongoing applications: fill the gaps, strategic
conservation planning, optimized expedition
design,...
• flying across disciplines...?

28. Jump in!
www.scarmarbin.be
www.biodiversity.aq
www.gbif.org
www.slideshare.net/scarmarbin