Draft dated 28 September 2009

Concept

A central EOL theme is that of marine biodiversity. Some of the most important questions in biodiversity, conservation, evolution, and climate change research are focused on marine organisms, and the EOL is striving to aggregate the data needed to inform these projects.  Further, coastal and ocean resources are of paramount importance to our own success as a species on a water-dominated planet. Yet, delicate marine ecosystems such as coral reefs are threatened, and global fisheries are collapsing. Aggregating information on megadiverse marine groups will contribute in important ways to global biodiversity research, policy, and education, and as our first focused theme will give us valuable experience organizing future themes. We plan to accelerate the marine focus with a crosscutting approach that includes efforts by all components of the EOL and collaboration with key partners in the Marine Biology, Marine Conservation and Museum communities.

Goals

(1) To have species pages rich in content for 90% of all marine species within four years, that is by 2013.

(2) To consult with the scientific community through synthesis efforts, collaboration with content partners, and EOL curators to develop and address grand challenge questions focused on marine biodiversity, where EOL can have a significant impact. For example:

• Marine species diversity and discovery. What is the scale of the task of marine species surveys and discovery for the future?  How can  EOL best help the efforts of COML, WoRMS, and the many independent taxonomy and survey efforts around the world?  Leads to species pages, online keys, support for meetings, new biogeographic tools.
• Climate change science.  What are the marine groups and habitats most threatened by climate change?  How can EOL help to identify the major risks, and aggregate the most appropriate kinds of information that will help scientists have insights regarding solutions to marine climate challenges?
• Conservation biology and education. How can EOL best foster increased public understanding of climate change and the importance of ocean biodiversity?  How can EOL highlight food chains, climate cycles, carbon cycling in the oceans, and marine system relevance to human society?
• What are the major patterns of evolution and biogeography among the major marine groups?  Is the "out-of-the tropics" model recently discovered for mollusks also characteristic of other groups?  What data are needed to address this kind of global biodiversity question, and how can EOL position itself to provide these kinds of data?

(3) To accelerate the scanning and tagging of literature on marine biodiversity. The Biodiversity Heritage Library has already made a great deal of literature available digitally and attached it to the appropriate species pages in raw form. Next, interns and volunteers will be recruited to extract descriptive text from BHL material and translate it into layman-accessible content.

(4) To develop novel educational tools based on the challenge above that highlight marine systems and their importance to the global environment, the economy, and nutrition. E.g. WhyReef

Prior work

The marine theme has already begun in earnest with marine fishes having an important early presence on EOL. Several synthesis meetings (Amphipods and Isopods, Bryozoans, Corals, Decapod crustaceans, Radiolarians, Scleractinian Corals, Fossil Marine Tetrapods and Meiofauna) have already been funded, and other synthesis groups on fish biogeography and other marine groups are now forming.  In addition, three NSF grants (coral reef fish phylogeny, bivalve Tree of Life, and sponge Tree of Life) and a MacArthur Digital Learning Grant (WhyReef, a virtual reef in WhyVille) have now been funded that specifically list EOL as a key partner. Marine biologists are well organized and interested in informatics. The Census of Marine Life has brought together many communities, and they are enthusiastic partners with EOL. The World Register of Marine Species currently lists 170,618 valid marine species, 76% of which have been verified by taxonomic experts.

Time Frame

Already underway, through 2013

Estimated Cost

In large part covered by existing funding, except as noted.

Component activities

Species pages group

• New part-time Marine coordinator, Jen Hammock, to oversee most of the marine-related activities
• Gaps identified in actual and potential marine partner content: more than half of marine species do not have existing digital images or text available or expected soon.
• Works with Census of Marine Life to urge and assist its partner projects to submit species information (images, distribution text, maps, other text data) for organisms included in their census, mostly by Oct 2010.
• Work with model projects to demonstrate below steps in the next few months: (ChEss, CMarZ, CReefs, ArcOD, CenSeam):
  • Each project identifies its resources on hand and page needs relevant to census reporting
  • Each project forms partnership with EOL
  • Exchanges simplest data, e.g. images, structured text, from their existing online dbase or via a LifeDesk
  • Sends literature lists to Scanning and Digitization group, uploads to repository
  • Ensures that the project taxonomic revision efforts are connected to EOL via a taxonomic partner (eg.: NCBI, WoRMS)
  • Encourages its participants to become curators
  • Responds to requests to assemble small amounts of targeted pages (see Rapid Response, below)
• Identify and recruit additional content partners: scholarly websites, major museums, DNA barcoding projects, private online photo collections.
• Allot at least one third of Fellows awards for those working on Marine taxa
• LifeDesks. Those fellows and participating groups that are not already working with existing data aggregation efforts to form core of early LifeDesk owners.
• Rapid Response team prepares pages for museum exhibits and special projects (Galatee, Oceans Portal, Biscayne Bay BioBlitz)

Current and Pending Major Marine Partners

• Fishbase (~20 000 marine species, text and/or images)
• WoRMS (8750 invertebrates, images; stub pages for 160 000 species)
• NMNH Antarctic Invertebrates (1875 species, text)
• NMNH Invertebrate Zoology (4300 species, images)
• FAO Species Catalogues (2530 marine species, text and images)
• IUCN Red List (900 marine species, text)
• Census of Marine Life (twelve projects, possibly 50 000 species, some species page collections, other more widespread data, eg.: habitat keywords)
• Hexacorallians of the World (3050 taxa, text and images)
• Encyclopedia of Marine Life of Britain and Ireland (several hundred species, images and text)
• Marine Life Information Network (several hundred species, text)
• The Dutch Ascidians Website (several hundred species, images and text)

Informatics

• Ingestion of large databases will continue, as identified and recruited by the Species Pages Group and other components.
• Linking to CoML-generated keys and guides and other identification resources
• Google Biosphere layer to complement Google Ocean.
• Improvements to LifeDesks to accommodate needs of marine community
• WoRMS names currently supplement the Catalog of Life backbone. These names enable tagging of all marine pages as "marine" so that content can be filtered to be an Encyclopedia of Marine Life
• Provide ability to navigate EOL content via WoRMS hierarchy instead of CoL hierarchy

Literature scanning

• Scanning will be especially concentrated on the literature of greatest value to the marine community
• Article repository populated with entries from marine taxa.

Biodiversity Synthesis Center

• Synthesis meetings relevant to the marine theme will be encouraged. These might focus on taxonomy and phylogeny of marine organisms, marine biogeography, genetic diversity of marine groups, international marine and coastal regions, and the conservation of vulnerable marine ecosystems.
• Fund raising efforts to NSF and other foundations will continue to focus on marine biodiversity and incorporating the use of the EOL in fundamental research on coral reefs, biogeography and conservation in the marine realm.
• Web-based gaming and virtual world activities such as WhyReef will be continued and expanded, in an effort to raise the awareness of children (and their parents) regarding marine systems.
• Recruitment of content for marine species pages will continue through internationalization efforts (advocating for international attendees at marine focused meetings) and involving marine expedition biologists in the pipeline for EOL content.

Learning & Education

The Learning & Education Group has focused a number of efforts and activities on the marine theme to both draw attention to this area and to help foster more marine content creation.

• Undergraduate Initiative: We are providing tools (Education LifeDesks) and assistance to instructors who incorporate species page writing as a class project.
• Marine-themed Podcasts: In partnership with the Smithsonian Institution and Atlantic Public Media, we are developing a series of podcaststhat explore the stories behind scientific investigations of marine species.

Partnerships and connections are being established with:

• Marine-oriented museum exhibits e.g. Smithsonian's Sant Ocean Hall and the associated Ocean Portal
• Members of the Centers for Ocean Science Education Excellence
• Ocean parks (Sea World, Baltimore's National Aquarium, Shedd Aquarium, Monterey Aquarium)
• Galatee Films
• The 2010 BioBlitz at Biscayne National Park, Florida in partnership with National Geographic and the National Parks Service.

Additional activities will be identified for several components that could be undertaken depending on fundraising success. For example, more robust BioBlitz tools can be developed that would be effective in marine or estuarine environments.

Targets, with baseline

Species pages goals: 25 000-30 000 additional marine species pages per year for four years.

Number of marine content partners & LifeDesks: 10 additional partners and Lifedesks per year for four years.

Number of marine curators: 100 additional curators per year for four years.