Proof of concept study of the Socio-Ecological Research and Observation oNTOlogy (SERONTO) for integrating multiple ecological databases. Introduction Nicolas Bertrand 1, Herbert Schentz 2, Bert Van der Werf 3, Barbara Magagna 2, Johannes Peterseil 2, Sue Rennie 1, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UK), Umweltbundesamt (Austria), ALTERRA (Netherlands) ALTER-Net is a network of excellence for Long-Term Biodiversity, Ecosystem and Awareness Research spanning 24 institutions in 7 European countries. The aim is to develop an integrative research framework in biodiversity research and monitoring to address biodiversity issues at a European scale. A key objective is the development of a framework for distributed data, information and knowledge management. The major challenge in achieving this objective is the provision of consistent data access and querying across multiple institutions and diverse data types. Semantic approaches to data integration are seen as an enabling mechanism to carry out integrated socio- ecological science at a global scale. The Socio-Ecological Research and Observation oNTOlogy (SERONTO) has been developed building upon Umweltbundesamt’s (Federal Environment Agency – Austria) experiences in developing a semantic database system for managing environmental data. To validate the development of SERONTO and its uses for future data integration, a proof of concept study was conducted. The scope of the proof of concept was to test: The feasibility of mapping relational databases to SERONTO and The querying of the connected database(s) from the ontological view of SERONTO SERONTO is a core ontology for ecological observations and measurements SERONTO shall allow to annotate WHAT is observed WHERE and HOW SERONTO shall allow to annotate how the investigation items were SELECTED from populations SERONTO has to be extended by DOMAIN Ontologies SERONTO has to integrate agreed reference lists SERONTO has a versioning system SERONTO UNITS DOMAIN Ontologies SERONTO: Socio-Ecological Research and Observation Ontology More information is available on the ALTER-Net I6 Wiki: Proof of Concept JOKL cultural landscapes JODI vegetation 2835 foodplain Pythia vegetation ECN Summary Database Import OWL Ontology Connect Databases Query What is SERONTO? Key Concepts in SERONTO Open Questions Can SWRL / F-Logic be used interchangeably? How to map to an OWL ontology sub property? Governance of global and local reference lists Mapping requires knowledge of the connected database, ontology and F-Logic. Effort involved is significant. Maintenance of mappings between reference lists is crucial Coupling value sets and units as well as calculations must be further tested. How can GUIDs such as LSIDs be integrated into SERONTO? Results We could import SERONTO and Units Ontologies into Ontostudio We could import Database Schemata into Ontostudio We could do simple and complex database queries We could readily extend SERONTO classes from the contents of databases We could map databases to SERONTO graphically where relations between tables and concepts where appropriate We could create more complex mappings including at instance level using the F-Logic syntax We could query multiple connected databases from SERONTO SERONTO Results F-Logic / OntoStudio F-Logic is an object oriented database language capable of expressing semantic queries. OntoStudio is an ontology management system that can use F-Logic to connect databases (Oracle, MS-SQL, DB2, MySQL), Excel tables and folder structures of the file system OntoStudio can import OWL ontologies into F-Logic. F-Logic can then be used to query the connected systems F-Logic differs significantly to OWL Description Logic (Closed World semantics vs Open World semantics) Scope To validate the development of SERONTO and its uses for future data integration, a proof of concept study was conducted. The scope of the proof of concept was to test: The feasibility of mapping relational databases to SERONTO and The querying of the connected database(s) from the ontological view of SERONTO The requirements for accepting the proof of concept were: The databases must have different structures and must have been developed independently of SERONTO; The databases must feature reference lists (e.g. species lists); The database structures must not be altered as a result of the integration work; New concepts may be imported into SERONTO as and when required; The databases must contain data relevant to Long Term Ecological Research (e.g. vegetation surveys, records of species occurrences, measurement of biotic and abiotic components).