BISMaL: Biological Information System for Marine Life and Role for Biodiversity Research

The need of a global network for biodiversity information has been recognized as the supporting mechanism not only for the science community but also for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Agenda 21 that followed the Earth Summit in 1992. An international workshop coordinated by the International Union of Microbiology Societies (IUMS), International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS), World Federation for Culture Collections (WFCC), and United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) confirmed the philosophy of a biodiversity information network based on the following (Canhos et al. 1992): The network for biodiversity must be on a global scale, interdisciplinary, and accessible worldwide, without borders. Biodiversity is multidisciplinary, and its information must cross conventional borders and be exchangeable between databases.

[1]  R. Guralnick,et al.  Biodiversity informatics: automated approaches for documenting global biodiversity patterns and processes , 2009, Bioinform..

[2]  Thomas J. Webb,et al.  Biodiversity's Big Wet Secret: The Global Distribution of Marine Biological Records Reveals Chronic Under-Exploration of the Deep Pelagic Ocean , 2010, PloS one.

[3]  Edward Vanden Berghe,et al.  'Ocean biodiversity informatics': a new era in marine biology research and management , 2006 .

[4]  Harri Tolvanen,et al.  Geospatially structured biodiversity information as a component of a regional biodiversity clearing house , 2004, Biodiversity & Conservation.

[5]  F. Grassle.  The Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS): An On-line, Worldwide Atlas for Accessing, Modeling and Mapping Marine Biological Data in a Multidimensional Geographic Context , 2000 .

[6]  J L Edwards,et al.  Interoperability of biodiversity databases: biodiversity information on every desktop. , 2000, Science.

[7]  Robert P. Guralnick,et al.  CHALLENGES BUILDING ONLINE GIS SERVICES TO SUPPORT GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY MAPPING AND ANALYSIS: LESSONS FROM THE MOUNTAIN AND PLAINS DATABASE AND INFORMATICS PROJECT , 2005 .

[8]  Roberto Danovaro,et al.  A Census of Marine Biodiversity Knowledge, Resources, and Future Challenges , 2010, PloS one.

[9]  Y. Shirayama,et al.  Marine Biodiversity in Japanese Waters , 2010, PloS one.

[10]  R. O'dor,et al.  Marine Biodiversity and Biogeography – Regional Comparisons of Global Issues, an Introduction , 2010, PloS one.

[11]  Cindy Lee Van Dover,et al.  Mining seafloor massive sulphides and biodiversity: what is at risk? , 2011 .

[12]  Patrick N. Halpin,et al.  Spatio-Temporal Gap Analysis of OBIS-SEAMAP Project Data: Assessment and Way Forward , 2010, PloS one.

[13]  D. Bailey,et al.  Temporal change in deep-sea benthic ecosystems: a review of the evidence from recent time-series studies. , 2010, Advances in marine biology.

[14]  M. Fabri,et al.  Combining the Biocean database for deep-sea benthic data with the online Ocean Biogeographic Information System , 2006 .