PRESENTATION ABSTRACTS
GLOBEC DATA MANAGEMENT
Hester Willson
GLOBEC International Project Office, Plymouth Marine
Laboratory, Prospect Place, Plymouth, PL1 3DH, United Kingdom hew@pml.ac.uk
The GLOBEC International Project Office was formed in
early Autumn 1999. I was appointed data manager in December 1999. The first
task I undertook as GLOBEC data manager was to collate all the information on
GLOBEC’s National, Multi-national and Regional Programmes. This information was
published as GLOBEC Special Contribution No. 4 and distributed amongst the
GLOBEC community. In May 2001, the GLOBEC Metadata portal was launched, hosted
by NASA’s Global Change Master Directory. Since that time I have spent a lot of
time writing the metadata entries to populate the portal (over 100). In the
last few months, a few authors other than myself have started adding DIFs to
the GLOBEC metadata portal. Data Management for the GLOBEC programme has been
made more difficult by the fact that the data management started long after the
programme had begun. Combining existing data management systems with new
metadata systems has been difficult and some programmes had finished before the
data management efforts had begun. Despite a good website and an increasingly
successful newsletter, it has been difficult to encourage active support for
data initiatives among GLOBEC scientists. Although communication with GLOBEC
National and Regional representatives is generally good, it has been difficult
to reach the majority of GLOBEC scientists as information does not appear to
‘filter through’ well In conclusion, data management is not ‘sexy science’ so
often is at the very bottom of the average scientist’s priorities. Things are
changing but progress is slow.
DATA MANAGEMENT FOR UK GLOBEC AND THE MARINE
PRODUCTIVITY THEMATIC
Phil Williamson 1 and
Gwenaëlle Moncoiffé 2
1 School of Environmental Sciences, Univ of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ,
United Kingdom p.williamson@uea.ac.uk 2 British Oceanographic Data Centre, Bidston Hill, Prenton, CH43 7RA,
United Kingdom gmon@bodc.ac.uk
UK GLOBEC activities are of two kinds: 1) the Marine
Productivity (MarProd) thematic with component studies on North Atlantic
zooplankton, funded as a 5 yr programme by the Natural Environment Research
Council; and 2) work of a more diverse nature, including Southern Ocean studies
(primarily by the British Antarctic Survey), research on commercially-exploited
species (primarily by fishery laboratories), plankton monitoring (by SAHFOS and
others) and participation in EU-funded programmes. Research leaders for
projects in both groups are encouraged to provide basic information, via DIF
entries, to the GLOBEC IPO. More than 40 have done so to date, providing basic
information on data management and data access arrangements. For the MarProd
thematic, additional data management structures have been developed to maximise
the long-term scientific and societal benefits from the programme. Thus the
British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC), hosted by the NERC Proudman
Oceanographic Laboratory, interacts with MarProd in the following ways: · close
involvement in fieldwork planning, formulation of data policy and protocols,
and other aspects of programme development, working with the Steering Committee
and individual scientists · maintaining a data-tracking system and assembling
data into an integrated database, checking on data quality and supporting
documentation · providing information services, supervising data access
arrangements and publishing data collations, for users within and outside the
programme. There has been good progress to date in the transfer to BODC of
datasets collected on MarProd research cruises in the northern North Atlantic. For
example: 45% completion for Discovery 258 (Nov-Dec 2001), and 26% completion
for Discovery 262 (April-May 2002). The programme data policy is available from
www.bodc.ac.uk (using 'projects' and 'current projects' links), together with
the Discovery 258 cruise report, a dataset inventory and banking status
information.
Notes: 5% of NERC funded programme awards go towards
data management. Data access to MarProd
data currently limited to those working within the programme. Wider sharing possible past
publication. BODC data managers go on
cruises – involvement of data manager in programme increases goodwill of
scientists and therefore, increases data submissions to BODC. Mentioned increasing awareness of need to preserve data for climate change work
where differences are seen over 30-50 years – longer than careers of
scientists.
In UK sample management is also undertaken. Preserved at National Museum in Edinburgh.
EXPANSION AND QUALITY CONTROL OF A GLOBAL PLANKTON
DATABASE
Todd D. O’Brien
Ocean Climate Laboratory, E/OC5, National
Oceanographic Data Center, 1315 East-West Hwy., SSMC-III, Room 4340, E/OC5,
Silver Spring,MD 21044, U.S.A. Todd.OBrien@noaa.gov
The Ocean Climate Laboratory (OCL), a research
and products division of the U.S. National Oceanographic Data Center, is
building an archive of globally distributed historical plankton measurements
and associated metadata. As part of the World Ocean Database, these
plankton data are stored with all available, co-located temperature, salinity,
nutrient, and chlorophyll data. The World Ocean Database 2001 contains
over 2.1 million globally-distributed Ocean Station Data (OSD) casts, samp led
from the early 1800s to the present. Of these stations, over 98,000 contain
measurements of plankton biomass (e.g. total mass or total volume), and
over 100,000 contain taxonomic measurements (e.g. counts of individual species
and/or life stages). The OCL collaborates with international scientists and
institutions, and participates in an active international program (the IOC Global
Oceanographic Data Archeology and Rescue (GODAR) project) to identify
and/or digitize historical plankton and profile data for inclusion into the
database. As work continues to expand the database, attention is being focused
on improving quality control techniques, comparing data from different sampling
techniques, and creating gridded fields of annual and seasonal mean plankton
biomass and abundance. Multi-variable integrated databases such as the World
Ocean Database are useful for a variety of research applications (e.g.,
studies on biological/physical interaction, climate change, decadal
variability, biogeography and biodiversity). These data are distributed on
CD-ROM as part of the World Ocean Database 2001, and are available
online at www.nodc.noaa.gov.
Notes: The WOD uses the Integrated Taxonomic Information
System (ITIS) taxonomic identifier (code) to represent over 1.5 million
taxonomic measurements collected in 140,000 tows. The plankton metadata content of WOD is compliant with the guidelines
of the IOC-EU-BSH-NOAA International
Workshop on Oceanographic Biological and Chemical Data Management (IOC
Workshop Report 122, 1996).
Plankton and profile data can be submitted to the World Ocean Database (WOD) in any format. The only pseudo-requirement is that the data
be accompanied by sufficient metadata to make them usable/useful. The World
Ocean Database team can work with the scientist(s) by phone or email to
ensure complete metadata content and understanding of the data after submission. The WOD team is comprised of scientists
(oceanographers), and focuses only on variables for which they have some
expertise. At the moment, that includes
temperature, salinity, oxygen, nutrients, chlorophyll, primary production,
plankton, and CO2 variables. Proposed
additional WOD variables are tracers, CFCs, and HPLC chlorophyll pigments. As the WOD team grows, additional variables
and fields will be added to the WOD.
Data and additional information are available online
at www.nodc.noaa.gov/OCL/plankton
.
THE FORMER
SOVIET UNION DATABASE FOR THE TROPICAL OCEAN
Sergey Piontkovski
Stony Brook University, USA and Institute of Biology
of the Southern Seas, Ukraine, spiontkovski@notes.cc.sunysb.edu
The presentation highlights the experience to unite
international efforts of scientists from Ukraine, Russia, UK, Kazakhstan,
Azerbaijan and the Netherlands in order to develop an oceanographic databases
for the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean and its enclosed seas (the
Mediterranean Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea). The databases incorporate
data on taxonomy, biogeography, and environmental characteristics of pelagic
communities and linked to a database management system. Apart from the database
and database management system developed, the following problems encountered
will be discussed:
-methods of data analysis on biodiversity
-data dissemination
-international co-ordination
-regional legislation and data exchange
-stability and prospective of funding for long-term international projects
Notes: CD to
be distributed in 2003.
CANADIAN GLOBEC METADATA INVENTORY FOR THE NORTH
PACIFIC
Stephen J. Romaine and Robin M. Brown
Fisheries & Oceans Canada, Institute of Ocean
Sciences, P.O. Box 6000, Sidney, BC, V8L 4B2, Canada BrownRo@pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca
The Canadian GLOBEC project was funded for the period
from 1997 to 2000, with project components in both the North Pacific and North
Atlantic Oceans. Over 30 research missions were conducted in the Pacific Region
by both Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) and universities in support of the
GLOBEC program. Much of the CTD and physical data resides at the Institute of
Ocean Sciences plus smaller DFO databases hold both zooplankton and fish data. Other
data types, including the modelled data, reside in various formats and
conditions either at DFO institutions or universities. Some of these data are
readily accessible to the public; whereas others are partially processed and
reside with Principal Investigator. An electronic inventory will outline the
current status of Canadian GLOBEC data collected in the North Pacific. Metadata
will include: research mission and vessel used, survey areas, PI’s, dates, data
types collected, the current storage location for the data, and the current
status of the data. This meta-database will be searchable for various data
types, Principal Investigator, date ranges, or data status. The meta-database
will also identify any shortfalls in data structure or data that are subject to
being lost or damaged since they are located in inadequate storage locations.
Notes: 58 cruises 1995-2002. See http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca for info.
METADATA INVENTORY OF BIOLOGICAL DATA COLLECTED BY
RUSSIAN FISHERIES RESEARCH INSTITUTES
Igor Shevchenko, Victoria Khan, Lilia
Miromanova and Georgiy Moiseenko
Pacific Fisheries Research Centre (TINRO-Centre), 4
Shevchenko Alley, Vladivostok, 690950, Russia igor@tinro.ru
For the period from 1999 to 2002 the Fisheries
Committee of Russia has been funding a project on implementation and
maintenance of a metadata inventory of biological data collected by Russian
fisheries research institutes. Metadata includes the numbers of research
expeditions, the vessels, co-ordinates and regions of samplings, dates,
registration forms, current storage location. Accounted are data that already
digitized and stored in the computerized databases. Covered are the periods
beginning from the foundations of institutes and all regions visited by the
Russian research vessels including the North Pacific. The contents are updated
once a year. The inventory is searchable through the Internet at
http://metadata.tinro.ru. Authorized users may even send queries using SQL.
Notes: Data no longer collected centrally. Data
distributed among institutions with no data management.
NEKTON, ZOOPLANKTON, ZOOBENTHOS AND TROPHIC LEVELS’
BIOPRODUCTIVITY DATABASES FOR THE NORTH PACIFIC
Elena Dulepova and Igor Volvenko
Pacific Fisheries Research Centre (TINRO-Centre), 4
Shevchenko Alley, Vladivostok, 690950, Russia tinro@tinro.ru
At the Pacific Fisheries Research Centre, for the
period from 1979 to 2002 data on nekton and nektobenthos were collected for the
Okhotsk, Bering, Japan Seas and some other regions of the North Pacific. Data
include the numbers of research expeditions, the vessels, co-ordinates of
samplings, dates and the registration forms. Besides, for the period from 1984
to 2002, data are available on biomass and productivity predatory and
unpredatory zooplankton and zoobenthos for the different regions of Bering and
Okhotsk Seas. Some of these data were already digitized and accessible to the
TINRO research fellows at request. The rest is not accessible since in a paper
form resides with the Principal Investigators.
HYDROBIOLOGICAL DATA COLLECTED AT TINRO-CENTER IN THE
NORTH PACIFIC
Anatoly F.Volkov, Valery I.Chuchukalo and
Victor A. Nadtochy
Pacific Scientific Research Fisheries Center
(TINRO-Center), 4 Shevchenko Alley, Vladivostok, 690950, Russia vaf413@tinro.ru
At Laboratory of Hydrobiology of TINRO-Center, there
are three main directions of research: planktonic communities, benthic
communities and feed chains of mass food fishes and invertebrates. The area
covered by the research includes the Russian Far Eastern Marginal Seas and
Kuril-Kamchatka zone. The following aspects are mainly studied: structure of
planktonic communities of epipelagial (a layer of 200-0 m), seasonal and
interannual dynamics, formation of productive zones; a plankton, as a food base
of nektonic animals, structure and interannual dynamics of benthic communities,
security food and its influence on structure of planktonic and ground
communities. The data are collected annually during scientific expeditions
undertaken according to the complex research programs of TINRO-Center since
1984. In total, it was made more than 50 cruises. The main part of the
collected data are usually processed during the cruises. The data are stored at
the laboratory both in electronic(60%) and paper (40%) forms.
Notes: Abstracts
by Elena Dulepova and Anatoly Volkov combined into one presentations.
Japan Sea, 92 large scale experiments, 1981-2002
Pacific, 126 large scale experiments, 1980-2002
Bering Sea, 31 large scale experiments, 1984-2001
Okhotsk Sea, 48 large scale experiments, 1982-2002.
Database contains Plankton 0-200m, Benthos, Feeding
habits of fish and invertebrates and bioproductivity data. Not accessible to outside world.
US GLOBEC DATA MANAGEMENT
Robert C. Groman
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA
02543, U.S.A. rgroman@whoi.edu
Good data management is an important component of a
successful multi-year, data intensive program like US GLOBEC. Data management
combines efforts in acquisition, quality control, storage design and retrieval
philosophy to support the analysis and synthesis goals of the scientific
investigators.
The US GLOBEC program consists of three modules:
Georges Bank, Northeast Pacific and Southern Ocean. Each module has from 45 to
70 scientific investigators, laboratory and field work, modeling efforts,
retrospective analysis, and synthesis activities. It is important that the
results of these efforts be made available to other researchers within the
program in a timely basis, and indeed that has been one of the primary goals of
the data management office. This has aided chief scientists in planning their
cruises and to make last minute changes in their ships' tracks based on the
results and input from previous cruises. Like many other programs, we take
advantage of the Internet to allow researchers in various locations, using
various different computing platforms, to access the program's data. Any
standard browser, such as Internet Explorer and Netscape, can access our web
site at http://globec.whoi.edu/ and follow the links to the on-line data sets. These
data are served using the US JGOFS software, developed several years ago to
address the US JGOFS data management needs. We have used the same software to
provide both distributed data serving and distributed data access. Web users
can download listings, plots, and the data files themselves to their own
computers following the guidelines of our Data Acknowledgment Policy.
Notes: Database contains field, lab, modeling data
plus retrospective analyses and synthesis efforts. Metadata centrally held in web-based system, data itself is
distributed. 12 data servers in US and
Canada. Biologists less keen to ‘share’
data than physicists and are lagging behind in terms of putting data online.
ARCHIVES OF PLANKTON DATASET
IN JAPAN
Toru Suzuki, Sashiko Oguma
Marine
Information Research Center, Japan, Suzuki@mirc.jha.jp
Notes: 1st meeting on Japan GLOBEC Data
Management in 2000. 2nd
meeting in 2002. Data mainly from Japanese Fisheries Agency. Data inventory may
be merged into to JODC database. K.
Odate collection – zooplankton biomass dataset, Western North Pacific 1951 –
1999. Included in World Ocean Plankton
Database. Also A-line Plankton dataset
and Historical Marine Organisms data.
KOREA GLOBEC DATA MANAGEMENT
Kim Sung Dae
Korea Ocean
Research and Development Institute, Korea. sdkim@kordi.re.kr
Notes: No
GLOBEC Data Management group. Korea Ocean Science Information Network http://kosi.nfrda.re.kr. Metadatabase of Oceanographic data products
managed by KODC (NFRDI). Korean
Antarctic Research Information system held at KORDI. Many metadata systems under construction. Biological data – Aquatic organisms
Information and Harmful Algae. See http://www.kordi.re.kr/eng/
for Oceanographic Data atlas of Korean Waters
GLOBEC DATA MANAGEMENT AND
EXCHANGE IN CHINA
Xianshi Jin
Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, P. R. China
Notes: BoSEC and EyeSEC. Chief scientists responsible
for submitting data to National Data Centre within timescale of 12 months. Data exchange between chief scientists of
subprojects. Limited use within
programme for 2 years then free access.