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Use cases

Habitat-based cetacean density models for the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico
Habitat-based cetacean density models for the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico

Cetaceans are protected worldwide but vulnerable to incidental harm from an expanding array of human activities at sea. Managing potential hazards to these highly-mobile populations increasingly requires a detailed understanding of their seasonal distributions and habitats. Pursuant to the urgent ...

Pteropods at risk
Pteropods at risk

Pteropods, also called sea butterflies, are tiny snails living in the water column that play a critical role in various ecosystems as prey for a variety of predators. There is a great concern about the potential impact of global change ...

Deep-sea diversity patterns are shaped by energy availability
Deep-sea diversity patterns are shaped by energy availability

The deep ocean is the largest and least-explored ecosystem on Earth, and a uniquely energy-poor environment. The distribution, drivers and origins of deep-sea biodiversity remain unknown at global scales. Here we analyse a database of more than 165,000 distribution records ...

Systematic biodiversity change - global reorganisation of species pools
Systematic biodiversity change - global reorganisation of species pools

A global study based on time series datasets from OBIS published in Science in 2014 detected temporal species community composition change, not systematic loss of diversity.

Multimodal SADs linked to spatial and taxonomic breadth
Multimodal SADs linked to spatial and taxonomic breadth

Species abundance distribution (SAD) models using OBIS and GBIF data reveals multimodality patterns are rather common and increase with ecological heterogeneity.

Some like it warm? Warm-dwelling species have increased in response to climate change in western/central Europe
Some like it warm? Warm-dwelling species have increased in response to climate change in western/central Europe

A new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, using data from OBIS, showed effects of climate change on species’ abundances, with an increase of warm-dwelling marine fish in the North Sea.

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OBIS in numbers

165M
species observations
201K
marine species
7043
datasets
37
nodes worldwide
26M
DNA sequences
6K
scientists & data managers
99
countries engaged

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