Call for nominations for the WoRMS Top-Ten Marine Species of 2021

Once again taxonomists have continued to publish many wonderful new species throughout the last year, despite all the challenges post by a global pandemic situation. So as we approach the end of 2021 it is time to think about nominations for The WoRMS Top Ten Marine Species of 2021!

LifeWatch citizen scientists trained in ‘identification of fish from beach waters’

In November, the enthusiastic citizen scientists of the SeaWatch-B beach observation network were offered another opportunity for in-depth training. This time, the focus was on identifying small fish in the beach waters. Recently Seawatch-B is included as a citizen science project within LifeWatch VLIZ.

Catalogue of Life: 20 years of documenting life on Earth

This year, 2021, marks CoL's 20th anniversary and it is a time to celebrate! Milestones include reaching over 2 million accepted species and the completion of the new Catalogue of Life infrastructure.

European Tracking Network for fish has reached over 500 million detections

In recent years, fish tracking technology has revolutionized our knowledge on fish migration and behaviour. Today, the European Tracking Network (ETN) integrates the European efforts of hundreds of users, dealing with thousands of tagged fish from a multitude of species. Within this LifeWatch initiative, 500 million detections so far have taught us a lot on fish species such as Atlantic bluefin tuna, European seabass and sturgeon.

WoRMS endorsed as a Project Action under the Ocean Decade

Last week, WoRMS received endorsement by the Ocean Decade as a Project Action, entitled “Above and Beyond – Completing the World Register of Marine Species (ABC WoRMS)”.

New versions of the Bio-Oracle dataset v2.2 and the R package sdmpredictors v2.10.0 are available

Bio-Oracle provides environmental data of the world ocean for present and future climate change scenarios. These data are mainly used by Lifewatch users to link biodiversity occurrence data to environmental conditions and predict the future distribution of marine species. Recently, this dataset is improved and offers better quality for the end users.

First Detections of Culiseta longiareolata (Diptera: Culicidae) in Belgium and the Netherlands

Between 2017 and 2020, larvae, pupae, and adults of Culiseta longiareolata were found at distinct locations in Belgium and the Netherlands. A potential vector of bird pathogens.

Porifera editors participated in the very first online organised WoRMS-LifeWatch editor workshop

In the week of June 7th 2021, the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) – host of Aphia, the online platform behind WoRMS and its many sub-registered – organized the very first online editor workshop, in which 13 Porifera-editors enthusiastically participated.

Coordinating the observation of biodiversity in the sea: a new collaboration

The Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON) of the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON), the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), and the SCAR Antarctic Biodiversity Portal share a common vision on the building and coordination of a global ocean biodiversity observation system. The common goal is to systematically assess the state and trends in the ocean’s biodiversity, including biological resources and ecosystems, and how these will change in the future.

PhD research reveals wild boar behaviour

Jolien Wevers successfully defended her PhD research on wild boar and roe deer ecology in a human-dominated landscape at Hasselt University.