Biodiversity's big wet secret: the global distribution of marine biological records reveals chronic under-exploration of the deep pelagic ocean

Background: Understanding the distribution of marine biodiversity is a crucial first step towards the effective and sustainable management of marine ecosystems. Recent efforts to collate location records from marine surveys enable us to assemble a global picture of recorded marine biodiversity. They also effectively highlight gaps in our knowledge of particular marine regions. In particular, the deep pelagic ocean - the largest biome on Earth - is chronically under-represented in global databases of marine biodiversity. Methodology/Principal Findings: We use data from the Ocean Biogeographic Information System to plot the position in the water column of ca 7 million records of marine species occurrences. Records from relatively shallow waters dominate this global picture of recorded marine biodiversity. In addition, standardising the number of records from regions of the ocean differing in depth reveals that regardless of ocean depth, most records come either from surface waters or the sea bed. Midwater biodiversity is drastically under-represented. Conclusions/Significance: The deep pelagic ocean is the largest habitat by volume on Earth, yet it remains biodiversity's big wet secret, as it is hugely under-represented in global databases of marine biological records. Given both its value in the provision of a range of ecosystem services, and its vulnerability to threats including overfishing and climate change, there is a pressing need to increase our knowledge of Earth's largest ecosystem

The Knowledge of the Grid: A Grid Ontology

This paper presents a knowledge architecture and set of ontologies that can be used as the foundation to facilitate the matching of abstract resource requests to services and resources, to determine the functional equivalence of Grid middle wares and deployments and to allow the description of ‘hybrid’ compound Grids composed of individual heterogeneous Grids. This is necessary as in all these cases what is required is mediation between different views or descriptions of Grids, which requires a formal reference vocabulary. We present a framework and ontologies for achieving this

IMIS: Integrated Marine Information System

The Flanders Marine Institute has taken the initiative to build an integrated information tool, called IMIS. The objective of this database is to provide information on all topics relevant to marine sciences - be it people with their expertise, institutions and their mandate, publications, etc. Different types of 'knowledge items' correspond to different modules in the system, each with their own entry into the database. These modules are (currently): Persons, Institutes, Literature, Journals, Conferences, Projects and Datasets. IMIS version 1.0 (accessible at: http://www.vliz.be/vmdcdata/Imis/index.htm) is in operation and the VMDC (Flanders Marine Data and Information Centre) schedules a new enhanced version in 2002

An inventory for lateral input into the Sea Scheldt

By order of the Waterways and Maritime Affairs Administration, division Sea Scheldt, the Flanders Marine Institute developes a database containing information regarding the lateral input into the Sea Scheldt. Water quality and quantity data of tributaries, industrial discharges and input trough locks are gathered and compiled into a cohesive database. The parameters included are flow, biochemical oxygen demand, total suspended matter, Kjehldahl N, nitrate and nitrite, ammonium and oxygen concentration. By determination of the XY-coordinates for the different discharge locations, the data is linked to Arcview and can be visualized by making selections on a GIS-map. Easy access to the contained information is assured by the possibility of making selections on different levels: for every company, nature of discharge, time and place a query for water quality and water quantity data can be made. The aim is to provide a well-structured inventory of discharge data that is needed for ecological modelling purposes. The database is made structurally compatible with the OMES-database in which it will be incorporated

Is "safe effective glucose control" effective and safe?

Since tight glucose control (TGC) inevitably comes with a risk of hypoglycemia, Krinsley and Preiser [1] suggest the use of a stepwise approach to glucose control, which they call “safe, effective glucose control ” (SEGC), and that targets an intermediate blood glucose level (BGL). SEGC is intended to decrease the rate of hyperglycemia while reducing the adverse effects of severe hypoglycemia. Of note, the randomized controlled trials that showed a benefit from glucose control have tested only one and the same BGL target (4.4 to 6.1 mmol/l [80 to 110 mg/dl]) [2,3]. In addition, in these trials conventional insulin treatment was administered only when the BGL was>12 mmol/L (215 mg/dl), with insulin infusion gradually decreased and stopped when the BGL fell to <10 mmol/l (180 mg/dl). Accordingly, the average morning BGL of the conventional treatmen

A taxonomic and biogeographic information system of marine species in the southern North Sea developed by Flanders Marine Institute

Aphia is a register of marine species that the Marine Data and Information Centre of the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) has built and maintains since its establishment nearly five years ago. This species register (Aphia) serves as a taxonomic backbone in the management of biological data obtained by our own efforts and those coming from various national and international projects and databases. Currently, Aphia holds 20,000 taxa, including 10,000 species names of which 2,200 are relegated to synonymy. Remaining names are those of higher hierarchical levels from the systematic classification. Besides pure taxonomy, Aphia contains about 3,000 vernacular names (mainly Dutch, English, French and German) and 4,000 notes regarding species biology, ecology, distribution, habitat, taxonomy and systematics among others. All the information is referred to its source, which can be a publication, an expert or a database. More recently, VLIZ started storing distribution records for the Southern North Sea. We now have nearly 40,000 distribution records for 400 localities. By screening literature, from recent works to those dating back to the mid nineteenth century, we intend to get a more complete overview of our current and historical biodiversity. In addition, documenting nomenclature changes, recording synonymy and storing every species record will help in correctly interpreting old and grey literature. The structure of the database corresponds to the international formats of both the European Register of Marine Species (ERMS) and the International Taxonomic Information System (ITIS). It will be possible to give taxonomic input to ITIS and ERMS. Our biogeographic system is now already linked with and provides data to the European node of the global Ocean Biogeographic Information System (EurOBIS).Maintaining our species register and storing biogeographic information is a work in progress, which falls within VLIZ’s core activities of documenting and integrating marine biodiversity data

Comparison and Modeling of Sand Behavior Under Cyclic Direct Simple Shear And Cyclic Triaxial Testing

Constant volume cyclic shear (DSS) tests were performed on Brusselian sand using the new NGI simple shear apparatus and a special control system for cyclic strain controlled testing. Test results are compared with those from cyclic triaxial (TXS) tests. The tests investigated the degradation of the cyclic shear modulus for different relative densities (from 60% to 90%), different consolidation pressures (from 5OkPa to 200kPa) and different shear strain amplitudes (from 0.1% to 9%). The comparison of the soil specimen behavior in the two different test types shows that soil degradation is mainly function of (1) the dilative or contractive behavior of the soil and of (2) the extreme state reached during the previous cycles. The test results show that there exists an unique relationship between the secant shear modulus of a given cycle and the energy dissipated during that cycle. A model is presented that predicts the hysteresis loops induced on a dilative soil during a cyclic strain controlled direct simple shear test