A new report on an EMODnet Biology Autumn 2024 data school is now out. This exemplifies that whilst EMODnet’s stakeholder engagement and collection of marine biodiversity data continues to expand, in collaboration with data providers and other initiatives, the total number of biological occurrence records for the Mediterranean Region remain low compared to other marine regions such as the Atlantic Ocean, North and the Baltic Seas. Concerted action is needed to increase data collection and data sharing efforts in the southern European regional sea basins.
As stated in the United Nations Environment Programme/Mediterranean Action Plan and Plan Bleu (2020), this knowledge gap is the result of many factors, particularly socioeconomic ones, such as uneven demographic development, geopolitical difficulties - mainly in the southern part of the Mediterranean - and high unemployment rates among individuals with advanced education. The aforementioned factors combined with limited awareness of open science best practices result in a lack of appropriate data collection and the availability of sufficient long-term time series for this region.
Following the acknowledgment of this marine data gap in the Mediterranean, a dedicated workshop was jointly organised, in Lecce, on November 2023, by EMODnet Biology and LifeWatch ERIC to collect biogeographic data from the region. The medOBIS team, with its expertise in standardisation and quality control procedures for marine biodiversity data, and a good knowledge of the Mediterranean Sea and its biota, as well as its network across the various countries bordering the Mediterranean, took the lead in this effort. The outcomes of the workshop entitled Autumn Data School have been published and are available via this link. The Data School covered best practices in data management, from collection to publication. Participants from Algeria and Tunisia brought their own datasets to work on and followed all necessary steps leading to their final submission to Marine Research Data Repositories, such as MedOBIS. The training aimed to enhance data reusability, facilitating republication in EMODnet Biology, OBIS, and GBIF.