LifeWatch aims to standardize biodiversity data through harmonization and the use of thesauri and ontologies. It has developed several thesauri like the Fish Traits Thesaurus and PhytoTraits Thesaurus to annotate data fields and facilitate integration and discovery. LifeWatch also uses a metadata schema and core ontology aligned with standards to populate metadata and map data semantics. It seeks to extend and align these resources with others to improve semantic interoperability and is interested in the EOSC for supporting e-science infrastructure. A need is a central registry of semantic resources in biodiversity to identify, select, and exploit them for various data management tasks.

1. LifeWatch
e-Science European Infrastructure
for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research
Toward LifeWatch ERIC FAIR
Nicola Fiore
LifeWatch ERIC Service Centre
Workshop “Semantic services in EOSC”
Porto, Portugal
Jan. 22-23, 2018

2. Heterogeneity impedes:
• Discovery
• Integration
• Re-usability
…..highly heterogeneous (structural
and semantic differences)
Large amounts of relevant
data sources…….
What do we need?
• Harmonization
• Standardization
for sharing information and
revealing its full potential
Context & Motivation
Workshop “Semantic services in EOSC”
Porto, Portugal
Jan. 22-23, 2018

3. Maturity / FAIRness Roadmap
DATA
METADATA
INTEROPERABILITY
SERVICES
• Portal / Human Interfaces
• Computational
• Visualisation
• Protocols
• SOA / Web Services
• PID
• Provenance
• AAAI
• Standard
• Ontologies
• Vocabularies
• Catalogue
• Information harmonisation
• Formats harmonisation
• Quality check
By EPOS, Daniele Bailo
Workshop “Semantic services in EOSC”
Porto, Portugal
Jan. 22-23, 2018

4. Mostly morphological traits
Fish
Phytoplankton
Macrozoobenthos
Zooplankton
Total Length
Depressiform
Data - LifeWatch Thesauri
Functional Traits Thesauri
http://thesauri.lifewatchitaly.eu/fishtraits/index.php
http://thesauri.lifewatchitaly.eu/PhytoTraits/index.php
Workshop “Semantic services in EOSC”
Porto, Portugal
Jan. 22-23, 2018

5. Data - LifeWatch Thesauri
 A community effort
Developed and managed through a collaborative process of domain experts
(Tematres Editor Tool)
 A stable reference resource
Represented with the SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization Systems) model
which:
• is a W3C Semantic Web Standard (World Wide Web Consortium, 2009)
• provides persistent concept identifiers (URIs)
• being based on RDF (Resource Description Framework), it structures the data
in the form of triples which can be coded in any syntax valid for RDF
 Free and open
(http://www.servicecentrelifewatch.eu/catalogue-of-services,
http://polytraits.lifewatchgreece.eu/; soon on..https://www.lifewatch.eu)
 Can be queried via web endpoints (SPARQL and API)
They are…...
Workshop “Semantic services in EOSC”
Porto, Portugal
Jan. 22-23, 2018

6. LifeWatch Thesauri USES
 Reference in documents (if you enter the URL of a concept you can follow it like
a hyperlink)
 Data annotation with common naming of parameters (e.g. naming and
characterisation of fields in LifeWatch Data Portal;
http://www.servicecentrelifewatch.eu/catalogue-of-resources)
 Data integration (e.g. mapping of data fields to thesauri concepts in LifeWatch
Data Sharing; http://www.servicecentrelifewatch.eu/catalogue-of-resources)
 Population of metadata models with standardised unambiguous terms
(URI/URL from authoritative source, direct access to thesauri using the
SPARQL language)
 Data and Metadata discovery interfaces by semantic search
 Semantic navigation through concepts (link)
Workshop “Semantic services in EOSC”
Porto, Portugal
Jan. 22-23, 2018

7. Each parameter presents information which are imported by
LifeWatch Thesauri.
Data Annotation

8. Data Integration
Naming and characterisation of fields
with LifeWatch Thesauri

9. http://thesauri.lifewatchitaly.eu/PhytoTraits/sparql.php
Results
Result Format
Semantic Navigation

10. LIFEWATCH METADATA SCHEMA
• Follows the INSPIRE metadata regulation and the ISO 19115 metadata
standard
• Contains 31 elements of which 20 are mandatory
LifeWatch Italy Thesauri
and other vocabularies on
biodiversity and ecosystems
domain.
Selected from

11. LIFEWATCH CORE ONTOLOGY
Workshop “Semantic services in EOSC”
Porto, Portugal
Jan. 22-23, 2018
THESAURI
MeasurementEntity
Characteristic
Measurement
Standard
Domain
anyhasValue (1:1)
realhasPrecision (0:1)
Context
usesStandard (1:1)
ofCaracteristic (1:1)
hasContext (0:n)
hasEntity (0:n)
Observation
hasMeasurement (0:n)hasObservation (0:n)
hasObservation (0:n)
hasCaracteristic (0:n)
Protocol
usesProtocol(1:1)

12. LIFEWATCH CORE ONTOLOGY
Workshop “Semantic services in EOSC”
Porto, Portugal
Jan. 22-23, 2018

13. LIFEWATCH CORE ONTOLOGY
Workshop “Semantic services in EOSC”
Porto, Portugal
Jan. 22-23, 2018

14. LIFEWATCH CORE ONTOLOGY
Workshop “Semantic services in EOSC”
Porto, Portugal
Jan. 22-23, 2018

15. LIFEWATCH SERVICES
Workshop “Semantic services in EOSC”
Porto, Portugal
Jan. 22-23, 2018

16. NEXT STEPS
Workshop “Semantic services in EOSC”
Porto, Portugal
Jan. 22-23, 2018
 Extension of thesauri and Ontology
 Mapping and Alignment with other Thesauri and Ontologies

17. NEXT STEPS
Workshop “Semantic services in EOSC”
Porto, Portugal
Jan. 22-23, 2018
BIODIVERSITY COMMUNITY PORTAL
(in collaboration with eLTER)
• A central registry for semantic resources (e.g. ontologies, thesauri, reference lists
codified in skos) used in the ecological and biodiversity domain allowing users to
identify and select them for specific tasks, as well as offering generic services to
exploit them in search, annotation or other scientific data management
processes.
• Functionalities such as browsing and different types of visualisation of the
content, mapping between the resources, automatic translation of labels if
available, annotation services

19. LIFEWATCH – EUDAT - EOSC
Workshop “Semantic services in EOSC”
Porto, Portugal
Jan. 22-23, 2018
1- Are you using or are you planning to use the existing EUDAT semantic services?
• We are working at Metadata and Data levels in order to harmonize information and
formats developing thesauri and ontologies. This is the necessary steps toward the
FAIR world. We are interested in EOSC as eScience Infrastructure and Juan Miguel
Gonzalez Aranda, LifeWatch ERIC CTO is coordinatin LifeWatch side an INFRAEOSC
proposal.
2- Which potential needs for additional semantic services or functionalities of existing
service would you need?
• One of the need in the biodiversity domain is a central registry for semantic resources
(e.g. ontologies, thesauri, reference lists codified in skos) in order to avoid duplication
of efforts from the different research groups and to facilitate the alignment of the
sematic resources available.