South West Pacific OBIS Data

The South West Pacific OBIS section provides a compilation of their data available at OBIS; The South West Pacific section of OBIS is administered by the New Zealand National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research that includes surveys of fish, invertebrates, and algea. The OBIS dataset includes species name, individual count, lat/lon, and some environmental correlates like depth and salinity.

Dataset Location: South West Pacific Regional OBIS Data: 

***Documentation is unavailable to distinguish the species grouped in each of these subsets. This data appears very similar to New Zealand NIWA Biological Observations.

Direct Download: All Sea, Asteriod, Bryozoan, Specify

Site Location: South West Pacific with some outliers (e.g., UK coast)

Site(s) Georeferenced: Yes

Timespan: 1874 - 2005, most since 1970

Sampling Frequency: Irregularly

Data Collection Summary / Methods: Methods vary widely among NIWA Marine Biological Information System (MBIS) research vessels.  MBIS currently contains data that are primarily the results of a series of research trawl surveys carried out as part of New Zealand's Ministry of Fisheries data collection to support fisheries management and several decades of marine invertebrate research sampling in the NZ Exclusive Economic Zone. MBIS also contains presence data for coralline algae around the New Zealand coast. Details of some of these methods are described by the NIWA Chatham / Challenger Project and the Census of Antarctic Marine Life Project.

Data collected: species name, individual count, date, location, temperature, depth, salinity, nitrogen, oxygen, silicate

Known Issues: To obtain this dataset you must use the interactive data mapper and make multiple clicks to orient and dowload data. May be difficult to locate quickly or with an automated program.

This data is intened as a primary data node for South West Pacific OBIS; however, very little information is available regarding the dataset content and methods. It is unclear exactly what separated the All Sea, Asteriod, Bryozoan, and Specify data subsets.

Best Practices: tips for separating the wheat from the chaff.
 
Conditions for use: 'freely available' and 'open-access' as per OBIS: http://iobis.org/about/vision

NIWA opperates under the Open Geospational Consortium and the Open Source Geospatial Foundation.

Citation/ Distributing Author: None Available

Supplemental resources: New Zealand National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research

Third party data listing at: NASA Global Change Master Directory

Available via the EcoData Retriever: No