MarLIN - CSIRO Marine Laboratories Information Network CAAB - Codes for Australian Aquatic Biota plus other systems of interest... Tony Rees Divisional Data Centre CSIRO Marine Research, Hobart, Australia

Systems of relevance to this workshop MarLIN v1 (1998-current) CAAB v2 (Sep 1999) New CSIRO Marine Research central data storage system (under development) Australian Coastal Atlas (at Environment Australia)

Generic features of metadata Abstraction/reduction from original data Contextual information Some plotting/visualisation tools “Test bed” for user interfaces/protocols “Front end” access to data storage system Exchange/distributed systems possibilities

What level of abstraction/aggregation is desirable? Will vary according to user needs, system capabilities, resources available, response time required Max/min ranges replace point values Species groups or individual taxa? Data collection events normally aggregated for metadata purposes -how far to go?

Capabilities of MarLIN v1 ( ) List datasets in any defined region and/or time period (subsetted by keyword, subject category, etc.) List taxa occurring in datasets which overlap the defined region, and link to relevant records Automatic link to full CAAB taxon report for any taxon Generate on-the-fly GIF images showing bounding coordinates for any record Hold links to other www resources for more detailed information Present capabilities of MarLIN include:

Example MarLIN output (current version) Dataset extents (plus full metadata reports, on-line links, etc.) Species records Start year: 1990 End year: 1995 Selected region: Bass Strait Panulirus cygnus.. (Western Rock Lobster) Mustelus antarcticus.. (Gummy Shark) Centroscymnus crepidater.. (Deepwater Dogfish) Centroscymnus owstoni.. (Owston's Dogfish) Deania calcea.. (Brier Shark) Squalus megalops.. (Cosmopolitan Spurdog) Pristiophorus cirratus.. (Common Sawshark) Urolophus viridis.. (Green-Backed Stingaree) Diastobranchus capensis.. (Basket-Work Eel) Alepocephalus sp. 1.. (Small scale) Chlorophthalmus nigripinnis.. (Cucumber Fish) Lampanyctus sp... [a lanternfish] Halargyreus johnsonii.. (Slender Cod) Macruronus novaezelandiae.. (Blue Grenadier) Coryphaenoides serrulatus.. (Serrulate Whiptail) Coryphaenoides subserrulatus.. (Long-Rayed Whiptail) Hoplostethus atlanticus.. (Orange Roughy) 3 Linked GIF images or pre-formatted data

MarLIN - Marine Laboratories Information Network

Features envisaged for MarLIN v2 Improved spatial searching On-line links to data in new master database (under construction) Possibly additional plotting options rather than just a few fixed base map files Maybe distinguish between raw data and derived/aggregated data when searching Enhanced linkages to other metadata systems

CAAB - Codes for Australian Aquatic Biota Developed over 20+ year period Master database stores scientific and common name information for every taxon, voucher specimen information, etc. Current “CAAB scientific name” maintained by local specialists Photos, maps, etc. are not stored in the database, but can be stored nearby and accessed via on-line links Preconfigured links incorporated to FishBase (for fish species) and ITIS (where ITIS code entered) Codes incorporate an embedded taxonomic hierarchy Web interface (Sep 1999)

Present outputs available from CAAB Search CAAB by scientific name or synonyms, common name or alternatives, taxon code or old codes List taxa in a particular family or CAAB major category Display taxa on a regional basis Show pre-formatted CAAB report for any taxon “Normal” external users: Display admin-level details for any record Edit CAAB content for taxa in allowed groups Display user log and details of all CAAB access events Admin level users:

Example CAAB search

Possible future links to distributed systems MarLIN already linked to Australia-wide “Blue Pages” system Will soon be linked to “Australian Spatial Data Directory” or ASDD MarLIN polygon data could be made available to “Australian Coastal Atlas” CAAB could be made available for searching by ITIS identifier (or other) to external systems as desired

Australian Coastal Atlas (Environment Australia) c.200 layers at present - examples:... – 250k Australian Coastline – 15 sec Bathymetry – Beach sediment characteristics for North Queensland – Coralline Algae within offshore region of Australia – CAMRIS Seagrass Dataset – 1997 Nature Conservation Reserves (polygons) uses SDELINK software to generate the images from information held insuppliers’ relational databases accessed by SDE (Spatial Database Engine) MapServer – Prototype (Feb 1999) is a central WWW mapping node. This interface allows the user to add, remove and edit layers. All data is stored in SDE, and displayed directly in a web browser (Netscape or IE 3.0 and above) requiring no plug-ins.

Example ACA output... Aust. Coastal Atlas (ACA)/ Australian Atlas Environment Australia marine/coastal_atlas/ My house

Possible relevance for OBIS/CoML data Facility to produce taxon lists/ other data for a defined region Generate “thumbnail” species ranges System to store/retrieve relevant metadata Taxon management system On-line mapping into enquirer’s web browser Prototype distributed systems already available