Ocean Biodiversity Information System

Ocean Biodiversity Information System
Type of site
web-based data and information system
Available inEnglish
URLwww.obis.org
Commercialno
Registrationnot required
LaunchedMay 2000
Current statusactive
OBIS records for ocean sunfish, Mola mola, as at July 2018, visualised by the OBIS mapper (www.obis.org)

The Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS), formerly Ocean Biogeographic Information System, is a web-based access point to information about the distribution and abundance of living species in the ocean. It was developed as the information management component of the ten year Census of Marine Life (CoML) (2001-2010), but is not limited to CoML-derived data, and aims to provide an integrated view of all marine biodiversity data that may be made available to it on an open access basis by respective data custodians. According to its web site as at July 2018, OBIS "is a global open-access data and information clearing-house on marine biodiversity for science, conservation and sustainable development." 8 specific objectives are listed in the OBIS site, of which the leading item is to "Provide [the] world's largest scientific knowledge base on the diversity, distribution and abundance of all marine organisms in an integrated and standardized format".[1]