Ocean Biodiversity Informatics
Hamburg, Germany: 29 November to 1 December 2004
Second announcement and call for papers
With this second announcement we would like to invite you to register for the conference
and to submit an abstract of your proposed scientific contribution. Please circulate this
announcement to potentially interested colleagues. Check the symposium website
http://www.vliz.be/obi for the latest developments and downloads of relevant forms
(registration, call for contributions & abstracts, hotel)
‘Ocean Biodiversity Informatics’ wants to offer a forum to marine biological data managers to discuss the
state of the field, and to exchange ideas on how to further develop marine biological data systems. The
conference topics will be restricted to marine biological data management - taxon-based, biogeography but
also environmental, non-taxon based data management. One very important aspect of the discussion will
centre on potential gaps and overlaps in the taxonomic and geographic scope of existing data systems. How
can we, as a community, ensure that we are covering the whole field, and that no taxonomic groups are left
out? How can we make maximal use of resources, and avoid overlaps?
Marine biological data, as many other types of data, are often collected on a relatively narrow geographical
scope, and over a short time span. Data gathering is often part of short-term projects or PhD or MSc theses.
Yet, in order to answer questions related to global change, we need massive databases on long-term, largescale patterns. How do we integrate individual databases into datasets that allow large-scale, long-term
analyses? What is the role of international organisations such as ICES, the IOC and FAO in this? What is the
role of CoML and OBIS, and of GBIF? Which others have a role to play? We are particularly interested in
presentations that demonstrate how large databases have been instrumental in analysing global patterns.
In response to the first announcement, several promising papers have been submitted. Speakers are coming
from all continents, and will include Daniel Pauly, Rainer Froese, Syd Levitus, Mark Costello and others. A
tentative programme will be posted on the OBI web site soon. Both ICES and TDWG have agreed to join to
the consortium of organisations.
In this second call we especially seek papers of wide international interest because of (a) the insights they
bring to biodiversity, fisheries, and oceanography that used data collected at regional to global scales, and/or
(b) that present novel technical solutions to the management of ocean and/or biodiversity data. Specifically,
we’re looking for contributions that deal with the following topics:
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fisheries informatics;
insights into oceanography from analysis of data from large geographic areas;
novel technical solutions to managing biodiversity data, including serving, mapping and analyzing
data over the internet
quality control, mapping, gazetteers, Geographic Markup Language, Marine XML, etc.
The deadline for abstract submission has been set to 31 August 2004, for registration to the conference to
31 October 2004.
We have arranged for the publication of selected papers (not a full conference proceedings) in the world
leading journal Marine Ecology Progress Series. Papers may be full papers, short communications, or short
'Opinion' articles. However, they will be subject to the normal peer-review process for the journal. Guidelines
for authors are available at the conference website. Authors wishing to offer papers for MEPS should contact
Dr Mark J. Costello (m.costello@auckland.ac.nz).
We look forward to receiving your contribution, and to meet you in Hamburg for a fruitful conference.
OBI Scientific Committee