The development of a new generation of biological sensors has drastically changed the studies of marine plankton from lab bench work to in vivo and real-time observations. Target organisms, from bacteria to plankton, can now be optically characterized and/or photographed and archived. Consequently, scientists are facing the difficult challenge to handle a large amount of data which need to be processed rapidly and harmonised before being stored in databases to be accessible to scientific/environmental management communities. In the Joint European Research Infrastructure for Coastal Observatories (JERICO-RI), we intend to integrate the monitoring of physical, biogeochemical and biological variables to better understand coastal ecosystems. Focusing primarily on plankton communities measured at high spatial and temporal resolution, we aim to provide a framework for the data flow following the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse (FAIR). To achieve this, we need to draw up best practices in data management to be followed by users and experts operating the sensors such as standardised protocol, minimal technical metadata elements for effective re-use, identify and extend appropriate vocabularies, identify tools for data integration and platforms for trust-worthy long-term archival, standardised data formats to be ingested by European data infrastructures. In this presentation, we will present some of our achievements regarding in vivo flow cytometry, imagery analysis, and multispectral fluorimetry. |
