Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS)

The Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) is the information component of the Census of Marine Life. It is a dynamic, global digital atlas for explaining ecological relationships in the oceans. OBIS is a web-based portal that links to databases of accurately identified species and their location and abundance, all integrated with environmental data, maps, and model outputs. OBIS is a federation of data providers, each member maintaining ownership of its own data. OBIS is the principal marine associate for the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).

More information on the technical aspects of OBIS, its partners and data providers is available at the OBIS portal site www.iobis.org.

The international OBIS Portal is currently maintained at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University (NJ, USA), but has established Regional OBIS Nodes around the world to increase accessibility to regional data sets and products and to help OBIS’ future sustainability. OBIS is advised by an international Governing Board responsible for developing and supervising the implementation of the OBIS policy; promoting and assisting in the development of relationships between OBIS and national and international organizations; determining the appropriate governance and management structure; approving strategies and plans for OBIS development and maintenance; and determining performance indicators and undertaking regular evaluations

All of the information collected by CoML’s Ocean Realm Field Projects and the History of Marine Animal Populations (HMAP) project, as well as modeling tools developed by the Future of Marine Animal Populations (FMAP), will be included in OBIS. In addition, OBIS continually seeks cooperation from worldwide researchers, organizations, industry and government agencies with databases and tools that can be effectively incorporated into OBIS.

For more information, contact:
Edward Vanden Berghe, OBIS Executive Director
J. Frederick Grassle, Principal Investigator
Hassan Moustahfid, OBIS Portal Manager