Aims
EurOBIS aims to increase our understanding of the distribution and ecology of the European marine life. It does so by centralizing the largely scattered European biogeographic data on marine species into one easily accessible location and to make these quality controlled data freely and widely available.
The collection of data primarily happens on an ‘ad hoc’ basis, but – in the framework of several projects or initiatives – a number of data collection actions have been organized, focusing on a particular region or specific taxonomic group.
The aims of EurOBIS can be summarized as follows:
- To visualize global patterns of species distributions and biodiversity in space and time, both from a current and a historical point of view
- To identify geographical, temporal and taxonomic gaps in our knowledge on species distribution information
- To emphasize the importance of time series and comparative/integrated studies
- To enhance the ability to test hypotheses on a larger scale than can be done based on individual datasets
