Celebrating the 15th anniversary of the World Register of Marine Species

You might have already heard… The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year! And we do not want to let this birthday pass unnoticed…

To celebrate, the Data Management Team and the current and past (co-)chairs of WoRMS are launching a series of 15 stories. All stories are on topics related to the World Register, and through these stories, we will take you on a journey to explore WoRMS from different perspectives. We will be sharing insights from ‘behind the scenes’, where both the Editorial Board and the Data Management Team are operating to keep WoRMS running and up-to-date, providing the high quality content you expect from WoRMS.

We invite you on this 15 week journey so you can get to know the World Register of Marine Species in more detail, discover some ‘unknowns’ and explore with us what the future may hold. This series of messages is intended for everyone, not just for our editors. Although they are definitely the ones to celebrate, we want everyone to have the opportunity to get to know WoRMS, the people behind the database and the continuous efforts that keep such a system dynamic and up-to-date.

With this invitation to read along, we also invite you to widely share these messages, making sure that we reach all of our users, from scientists to policy makers, industry and the wider audience.

Every week, we will release a new story, which will become available below. We will start on Thursday, November 17th 2022 and we will carry on until March 3rd 2023. We will take a short break during Christmas & New Year, as the host institute of WoRMS, the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), is taking a collective holiday that week ☺. 

Enjoy the journey!

#WoRMS15

 

1. Happy 15th birthday WoRMS! A story for each year.

Publication date: November 17th 2022

Today we kick-off the 15th anniversary celebration of WoRMS! Remember how it all started? From the first actions in 2007 and the first WoRMS marine taxonomy editor workshop, to the authoritative and comprehensive list of names of all marine organisms that WoRMS is today. Join us on a 15-week journey to explore WoRMS' past and future. (READ MORE)

 

2. Who are the experts behind the World Register of Marine Species?

Publication date: November 24th 2022

WoRMS is managed by a small Data Management Team (DMT) and an elected Steering Committee (SC), but the actual driving force behind the high-quality content of WoRMS is the Editorial Board. Who are all these volunteers on our Editorial Board, and what is driving them to contribute their spare time and expertise to WoRMS? Join us in this short dive into their insights on their editor-work, their favorite species and the general dynamics of our editor pool. (READ MORE)

 

3. WoRMS general growth: Number of species and their discovery rates according to WoRMS

Publication date: December 1st 2022

Since Linnaeus 1758, the starting point of zoological nomenclature, there has been an average annual discovery rate of 1.255 species per year. Over the last 5 years, the content of WoRMS grew with an average of 2.050 newly described marine species per year. WoRMS currently contains more than 241.000 accepted marine species. What is the rate of species discovery today? And what kind of species are still being discovered? (READ MORE)

 

 

4. WoRMS general growth: Editor activity and how this reflects in the content growth

Publication date: December 8th 2022

The global nature of our editor network is reflected in 24/7 activity. There is not only a dynamic in the continuous growth of the taxonomic content as highlighted in our previous story, but also in the further development of the structure and dynamics of the database itself. (READ MORE)

 

5. WoRMS general growth: How setting priorities helps in addressing gaps

Publication date: December 15th 2022

As with each large initiative, defining priorities helps the involved parties to organise their contributions. This is no different for the highly dynamic WoRMS. In 2015, the Steering Committee defined a list of priorities, by which they, the Editorial Board and the Data Management Team can organise their work and plan ahead. This is a story about the positive impact of such a priority list, as well as a look forward to what could become a priority in the future. (READ MORE)

 

 

6. Behind the scenes of the Data Management Team: the info-address

Publication date: December 22nd 2022

Some insights in the vast amount of messages arriving at the info@marinespecies.org address: from editors asking assistance in making additions, updates and changes in the system; onto users with photo identification questions; and even to medical questions about some parasitic worm. (READ MORE)

 

 

7. Taxonomy: a science, an art or a battleground?

Publication date: January 5th 2023

In 2003, Bill Bryson wrote a magnificent book: A short history of nearly everything. Did you know that his book also contains a section that touches on the field of taxonomy, and the challenges it faces? From that section, the Data Management Team grew very fond of the following quote: “Taxonomy is described sometimes as a science and sometimes as an art, but really it's a battleground”. (READ MORE)

 

 

8. Taxonomic problem solving: the challenge of author names

Publication date: January 12th 2023

In one of the previous #WoRMS15 Stories, we looked into how many marine species are currently known and documented. Here we will investigate further by whom these species were described, and what challenges this entails. How many marine taxonomists are actually out there? What if they have the same last name? And what if the authors themselves use different spellings of their names? (READ MORE)

 

 

9. Taxonomic problem solving: the challenge of problematic literature

Publication date: January 19th 2023

All content of WoRMS is backed up by a source, allowing users to easily retrace where information is coming from. But sometimes, sources can be very hard to find, not officially published and even contain species descriptions of mythical creatures. Read along, and learn how editors deal with this. (READ MORE)

 

 

10. X marks the spot: type localities in WoRMS and how they might reveal new insights in species discovery mysteries

Publication date: January 26th 2023

No, we will not be going treasure-hunting in this story, although we are pretty sure that type locality information is a currently under-explored piece of information within the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). (READ MORE)

 

 

11. WoRMS and literature: many aspects & seemingly endless possibilities

Publication date: February 2nd 2023

The links between WoRMS and literature are numerous and diverse. WoRMS contains hundreds of thousands of references and also offers available PDFs to its editors and users. Additionally, WoRMS is heavily cited in (scientific) literature and this is also being documented. The Data Management Team believes that many ‘treasures’ might hide in these vast literature collections. Join us on a literature-dive into WoRMS! (READ MORE)

 

 

12. How WoRMS supports the essential work of our editors

Publication date: February 9th 2023

Although the WoRMS editors do their WoRMS work on a voluntary basis and in their own time, some small financial support is (or has been) available in the shape of LifeWatch data grants, LifeWatch-WoRMS editor workshops and VLIZ philanthropy grants. (READ MORE)

 

 

13. WoRMS, above and beyond classical Linnaean taxonomy

Publication date: February 16th 2023

The binomial nomenclature system for species developed by Carolus Linnaeus, is still the standard today, also in WoRMS. Due to increasing progress in technology and science, more and more the need arises to use temporary names, species names that don't follow the Linnaean system. Find out more about WoRMS is handling this. (READ MORE)

 

 

14. The multifaceted users and uses of WoRMS

Publication date: February 23rd 2023

Who are the users of the World Register of Marine Species? WoRMS is used by scientists, policy makers, industrial players and civilians, representing all four pillars of the so-called quadruple helix. Read some specific user stories in this before last WoRMS 15 Story. (READ MORE)

 

 

15. Alliances and collaborations - past, present, and future directions

Publication date: March 2nd 2023

We’ve reached Story 15! And what a journey it has been! In this last Story, you can read about how WoRMS forms alliances with other taxonomic databases such as FishBase and AlgaeBase, instead of duplicating information, and how WoRMS closely collaborates with big players such as OBIS and COL, to create a taxonomic and species information backbone. And within the UN Ocean Decade, many more collaborations are likely to come. (READ MORE)

Contact

WoRMS Data Management Team - info@marinespecies.org

Acknowledgements:

This celebration and series of news messages initiated by the Data Management Team (DMT) would not have been possible without the collaboration of the WoRMS Steering Committee (SC) & voluntary contributions by many of the WoRMS editors.

The work of the DMT and many WoRMS-DMT-related activities are supported by LifeWatch Belgium, part of the E-Science European LifeWatch Infrastructure for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research. LifeWatch is a distributed virtual laboratory, which is used for different aspects of biodiversity research. The Species Information Backbone of LifeWatch aims at bringing together taxonomic and species-related data and at filling the gaps in our knowledge. In addition, it gives support to taxonomic experts by providing them logistic and financial support for the organization of meetings and workshops related to expanding the content and enhancing the quality of taxonomic databases.

WoRMS – as ABC WoRMS – is an endorsed action under the UN Ocean Decade.