More than 100K new occurrence records are published by EMODnet Biology in the first data harvest of 2024, including more than 100,000 biodiversity occurrence records, making EMODnet Biology data holdings surpass the 40 million occurrence records threshold.
Dear EMODnet partners, colleagues and friends,
A very Happy New Year to you all! The EMODnet New Year’s letter is something of a tradition, written by the Head of the EMODnet Secretariat. In 2024, the baton passes to me, Kate Larkin, as I took on the role of Head of Secretariat in Spring 2023. On behalf of the EMOD-network I wish the previous Head, Jan-Bart Calewaert, well in his new activities in the global ocean data domain, whilst he remains a trusted advisor to EMODnet.
The data published increased our holdings by roughly 1.5 million records and includes data from 1970 to 2022 from the North Atlantic and the North Sea. These data provide information on all groups except reptiles and ranging from methodologies to abundance or habitats.
The 3-day workshop took place in late September and was co-organised by the G7 FSOI and EuroGOOS. The aim was to provide advice on how to overcome the data infrastructures, observing and forecasting systems current gaps and limitations.
The EMODnet Biology course hosted by the Ocean Teacher platform has been updated. This new version is open to self-enrolment until May 2025 and includes a new section on how to provide information on seabed habitats.
The call is designed to engage institutions that manage marine biodiversity data to improve and implement streamlined workflows and procedures that promote and facilitate the sharing of critical marine biodiversity missing data through EMODnet Biology and subsequently the European Digital Twin of the Ocean (EU DTO).
On 27-30 November over 340 partners, associated partners, and stakeholders of the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) gathered in Brussels for the third EMODnet Open Conference and Jamboree. The week kicked off with a Partner Jamboree with the >120 partners exchanging on their latest service developments and joint activities. The Open Conference was a public event, moderated by Karen Coleman.
On 29th November, the two EC marine data services EMODnet and Copernicus Marine Service launch a joint statement on the EU in situ marine data landscape. The statement explains the complementarity between the two EU marine knowledge assets, and explains how the services work together, following a high-level agreement between DG DEFIS and DG MARE and the signature of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2016.
This project aims to compile comprehensive marine biodiversity time series in Europe, to disentangle the major patterns and drivers of long-term biodiversity trends using various taxonomic and functional diversity metrics, species traits, and environmental variables. The submitted data need to fulfill several requirements: minimum 8 sampling years, sampling location for the respective taxa does not change over time, sampling method, taxonomic resolution and season do not change, list…
A questionnaire was prepared to collect feedback from stakeholders that develop work within the marine biodiversity domain. This includes, primarily, those involved in the Regional Sea Conventions working groups, ICES working groups, European Union Technical Groups and Horizon projects.
We welcome responses via this link until the end of 2023.