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I've only been with the OBIS community for a little over 3 years now, but it's been an absolute pleasure to meet, learn from, and work with so many individuals around the world. OBIS truly is an amazing community, and we wouldn't be where we are today without all of you!

Congratulations and happy birthday OBIS!

Elizabeth Lawrence

OBIS Capacity Development Officer

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Do you know the Japanese manga “Dragon Ball”? https://en.dragon-ball-official.com/

The main character of “Dragon Ball” uses “Genki-dama” (Spirit Ball in English) to defeat powerful enemies.

“Genki-dama” are made by collecting energy from everything on Earth.

It is truly OBIS!

Let's continue to make OBIS more powerful like “Genki-dama”.

Kats Fujikura

OBIS-Japan

Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)

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My first introduction to OBIS was a request from OBIS when at Rutgers circa 2003 to access 150,000 Southern Ocean seabird occurrences. A week later, a DiGIR harvest point was created and so become my journey in publishing to international data portals and then becoming involved with the SCAR-MarBIN project. I have throughly enjoyed working with the OBIS community as it has evolved with changing standards and expectations.

Congratulations on being 25 years old and all the best for the future as I know it is in great hands.

Dave Watts (semi-retired volunteer OBIS data hacker)

2003-2011 Australian Antarctic Data Centre

2016-2024 CSIRO National Collections and Marine Infrastructure

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Behind the scenes throwback: The financial incubation of OBIS

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Behind the scenes throwback: The financial incubation of OBIS

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After the concept arose at a work feasibility workshop in the autumn of 1997 for what became the Census of Marine Life, on 12 January 1998 the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation approved a $24,000 grant to Dalhousie (Ron O’Dor) “to assess what is known on diversity, abundance, and distribution of squids and related marine animals, and to create a possible data management framework” and on 26 February a $30,000 grant to Rutgers University (Fred Grassle) “For exploration and development of databases on the benthic environment pertinent to a census of marine life.”

On 25 May 2000, Sloan approved $30,000 to The Oceanography Society (Rick Spinrad) “To prepare a special issue on the biogeographical information system for the Census of Marine Life”.  As part of an initiative of the National Ocean Partnership Program (NOPP) together with US government agencies who made  complementary grants on the same scale, Sloan then approved grants “To advance the Ocean Biogeographical Information System for the Census of Marine Life”  for mollusks (Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia, $499,905, Gary Rosenberg, 26 May),  fishes (California Academy of Sciences, $500,000,William Eschmeyer, 20 June), and cephalopods (U. of Texas Medical Branch , $449,472, Phillip Lee, 20 June).

On 11 Sept 2000 Sloan provided $26,000 to the Consortium for Oceanographic Research and Education (Conrad Lautenbacher) “To convene a workshop of leaders of the emerging Ocean Biogeographical Information System” and on 19 September 2001 $616,000 to Rutgers “To develop and administer the Ocean Biogeographic Information System for the Census of Marine Life.”  Within four years, thanks to sound vision, hard work, and excellent international cooperation, OBIS went from concept to demonstration and prototype.

Jesse Ausubel

Author of the concept paper on "The census of the fishes" that guided the early conception of OBIS

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From Data to Discovery - A 25 Years of OBIS Powering Ocean Science!

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From Data to Discovery - A 25 Years of OBIS Powering Ocean Science!

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As the Southeast Asia OBIS Node for nearly 15 years, it’s been an incredible journey of collaboration, capacity building, and shared commitment to open marine biodiversity data. I remember our early days, navigating challenges of data mobilization across diverse countries, and the pride in seeing regional datasets finally accessible through OBIS. We've grown not just in data, but in community connecting researchers, institutions, unforgettable memories and stories from across Southeast Asia. OBIS has truly been a platform of unity and impact, and I’m grateful to have been part of this journey. Here's to the next 25 years!

Kit Elloran

Node Manager, SEAOBIS

Director, Biodiversity Informatics and Geospatial Analysis,

ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity

Philippines

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Having been aware of OBIS since its inception, following a presentation at the UK’s Linnean Society in the late 1990’s, I am extremely happy to celebrate this significant milestone in my current role as OBIS Co-Chair.  In 25 years OBIS has grown beyond its initial concept to a truly global community of passionate,committed individuals and their supportive host organisations, united by a common goal.  OBIS collated data underpin an ever expanding range of products, tools and services which have demonstrably improved our knowledge and governance of the world's oceans.

Now more than ever we need open, quality assured biodiversity data to meet the emerging needs of BBNJ implementation and the challenges laid down through the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.  OBIS is at the centre of these efforts, and through the continued work of the network of OBIS Nodes and the wider marine biodiversity community we will see OBIS continue to grow and develop into its next quarter-century and beyond!

Dan Lear

OBIS Co-Chair

OBIS-UK

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Throwback: Early paper on OBIS, co-authored by Phoebe Zhang and Fred Grassle

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Throwback: Early paper on OBIS, co-authored by Phoebe Zhang and Fred Grassle

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Some of the initial ideas for OBIS were developed at a CoML meeting on bottom-dwelling ocean life in October 1997.

Recommendations from this workshop led to a web site (http://marine.rutgers.edu/OBIS) at Rutgers in 1998 to demonstrate the initial OBIS concept (Grassle and Stocks, 1999). The first OBIS International Workshop was held on November 3–4 1999, Washington, DC (Grassle and Decker, 2000).

In May 2000, US Government Agencies in the National Oceanographic Partnership Program together with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation funded eight research projects to initiate OBIS.

In May 2001, the US National Science Foundation funded Rutgers University to develop a global portal for OBIS. Also in May, the OBIS International Committee (IC)1 was formed and its first meeting was held in August 2001. At this meeting, the Committee set the goals for OBIS development and recommended that a technical working group be set up to make ongoing OBIS projects interoperable through the OBIS portal (http://iobis.org).

In December 2001, the technical working group 2 met in Lawrence, Kansas and protocols and data exchange standards for interoperability were agreed upon.

By February 2002, all NOPP-funded OBIS data projects, plus the NSF-funded SeamountsOnline, were made interoperable through the OBIS portal. The International Committee met again in Leiden, the Netherlands, February 2002. It was the consensus of the IC that OBIS will be a federation of functional modules established by its worldwide members and partners.

Under the direction of the IC, OBIS members and partners work together with the OBIS secretariat to provide data, GIS, analytical tools, modeling, and education services to users. In the following section, we will review each of the services OBIS provides, including methods, partnerships, current developments, and plans for the immediate future.

A portal for the Ocean Biogeographic Information System

Yunqing  Zhang, J.Frederick Grassle

Oceanologica Acta

Volume 25, Issue 5, September–October 2002, Pages 193-197

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0399-1784(02)01204-5

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Congratulations from the CoML ChEss Leadership Team. We have watched OBIS evolve and grow into the incredible global resource it is today. It takes a huge amount of grit and determination to ensure the longevity of any programme and you have led the way in demonstrating that this can be done!

We are also still going propelled by the extraordinary momentum of the CoML, with INDEEP and now DOSI as legacy programmes. Its lovely to see so many names from the Census past on here. The connections made during the Census decade have been priceless.

Very best wishes

Maria Baker, Eva Ramirez-Llodra, Paul Tyler and Chris German

CoML ChEss Team!

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Happy birthday greetings from above the Arctic Circle

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Happy birthday greetings from above the Arctic Circle

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Getting the opportunity to be involved into CoML and OBIS has been a milestone in many colleagues careers, including mine. It made me think in different dimensions, in different ways of integration of knowledge, realizing the Known, the Unknown and Unknowable.

The joint work on OBIS and CoML has not only created an international network of data nodes and information, but the network of people that has remained for me one of the major legacies and has inspired me in many ways. Being part of OBIS and CoML has been a privilege - so happy birthday OBIS and looking forward to follow how it will impact the next 25 years of ocean science and scientific integrations.

All the best

Rolf Gradinger

UiT The Arctic University of Norway

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Congratulations for the 25th Birthday of OBIS. A quarter century is considered as one generation of human life time. So, now OBIS starts its second generation. Responding to the request of younger generation in Japan, I recently wrote a review paper in Japanese language regarding the history and development of OBIS and J-OBIS (Japanese node of OBIS). In this course, I found how deep OBIS impacted on the development of biodiversity database in Japan. I also believed and expected that OBIS and J-OBIS will continue its development in the next quarter century.

Happy Birthday OBIS!!!

Yoshihisa Shirayama (Shira)

Chair, J-OBIS steering committee

Professor Emeritus, Kyoto University

Advisor, JAMSTEC

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First CoML Caribbean meeting (2003) - OBIS represented by James Wood (first on the left, second row, in green). Eduardo Klein (center, back row, in yellow) would become Chair of the Caribbean OBIS node, and later co-chair of OBIS.

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Congratulations to OBIS and to its wonderful team!

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Congratulations to OBIS and to its wonderful team!

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It has been an amazing journey born from a vision that was facilitated by incredibly talented people and the fast development of online technologies and platforms. With OBIS, we have much more than a marine biodiversity phonebook, we have the most comprehensive inventory of global marine biodiversity and a set of tools that allows us to use it for research, modelling, mapping, education, and to better inform policy, management and biodiversity assessments at all scales.

We also have a strong and growing community of practice that continues to bring together all stakeholders.

Bravo OBIS!

Looking forward to the next 25!

Patricia Miloslavich

Program Lead for the East Antarctic Monitoring Program, Australian Antarctic Division

Co-chair of the IPBES Monitoring Assessment

Former Senior Scientist for the Census of Marine Life

Former Chair of the Census of Marine Life Caribbean Committee

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I was Fred Grassle's graduate student when OBIS was launched, and it was incredible to see how this ambitious idea—born in a time before Google existed—grew into the global resource it is today. Fred always understood that the key to OBIS’s success was the spirit of human collaboration and sharing; the technological infrastructure was the easy part. OBIS was well ahead of its time and helped move the community toward the open science movement we see today.

It also changed my life—during my time with OBIS, I transitioned from marine ecology research into data curation and management, and I have never looked back.

Congratulations to all the people, past and present, who helped make OBIS the world’s premier marine biodiversity data resource.

Karen Stocks

Lifelong OBIS Fan

Scripps Institution of Oceanography

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Congratulations, OBIS!

This Communiy is an example of how ocean science technology has progressed in recent decades, enabling better science advice on ocean sustainability.

Paul Snelgroves

Professor of Biological Oceanography in the Department of Ocean Sciences and Biology Department at Memorial University of Newfoundland

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Happy Birthday 🎁 OBIS from the Topp team who are still here and tagging away!

Barb & Dan

www.TOPP.org

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I am very proud to see how OBIS has had new generations of scientists developing it in quality and quantity and functionality every year.

I am reminded of when Fred Grassle asked me to chair the OBIS committee in 1999 following the success of the European (now World) Register of Marine Species.

It was a team effort: Karen Stocks built the prototype, Phoebe Zhang managed it for many years, Tony Rees showed how species records could be taxonomically and geographically indexed to speed up the online searching. Daphne Fautin shared her success with the KGS species range mapping platform, Bob Branton and Jerry Black developed tools for mapping in space and time, Bob (Canada) and Don Robertson (NZ) set up some of the first regional nodes, Dennis Gordon and Geoff Boxshall advice on the taxonomy which led to the established of WoRMS (OBIS needed it), Rainer Froese shared his experience and wisdom from setting up FishBase years earlier, Jesse Ausubel challenged us to be more ambitious. Fred and Daphne have passed on, but I think they would also be proud.

Mark John Costello,

Professor at the Faculty of Biosciences and Aquaculture of Nord University, First OBIS Committe Chair

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It is such an honor and privilege for me to manage this incredible programme, with the support of a dream team, and such a devoted OBIS community and last but not least two amazing co-chairs Katherine Tattersall and Dan Lear. I want to express special thanks to all the people that spend a lot of time and energy to collect, process and publish millions observations to OBIS and make it a collective good for humanity now and in the future.

Ward Appeltans

OBIS Manager

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Congratulations to all who envisioned OBIS and carefully oversaw its growth and evolution over the past 25 years. Wow!

OBIS demonstrates what is possible when the world's scientists and statisticians come together. It also demonstrates how quickly time flies!

Darlene Trew Crist

Former Director of Communications, Census of Marine Life

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Here at the IODE office (where the OBIS Secretariat is based), we have a tradition of giving a special cupcake to the person whose birthday it is. So today, this cake is for you, OBIS!

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Congratulations on the anniversary of OBIS – a remarkable legacy of the inaugural Census of Marine Life (2000–2010).

As the world’s leading repository of marine species distribution data, OBIS plays a vital role in determining whether a species is rare or common, tracing the origins of invasive species, and identifying biodiversity hotspots in the ocean that deserve special protection. May the success of OBIS continue to grow and long continue.

Terry Collins

CoML Communications Advisor

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OBIS is the UN Ocean Decade's most comprehensive platform to bridge knowledge gaps in the deep sea.

Happy 25th anniversary to OBIS — and thank you for helping us see deeper :-D

Hanieh Saeedi

OBIS deep-sea node data manager

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I’m delighted to congratulate and share the OBIS birthday with all of you - I will be celebrating this special connection during a presentation today.

Marine research today would be unimaginable without OBIS – a testament to your dedication and continuous improvements over the years. Your hard work has made OBIS an essential resource for scientists around the world.

As a proud member of the Census of Marine Life (CoML) family, particularly in the areas of Southern Ocean and deep-sea research, this day holds special meaning not just for me, but for all of us in the CoML community and the wider marine science world.

Congratulations on your incredible impact – and here’s to many more years of success!

Warm wishes,

Angelika Brandt

Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt, Germany

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The development of OBIS for the census of Marine Life, and IOC’s ‘adoption’ of OBIS once CoML ended were crowning moments for ocean biodiversity data. Congratulations and thank you to all who have been involved in ensuring that OBIS continues to improve and serve the global community. Happy 25th birthday OBIS - well done!

Wendy Watson-Wright

Former Executive Secretary, IOC-UNESCO

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OBIS and OBIS-SEAMAP ~2000 – 2025 and beyond

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OBIS and OBIS-SEAMAP ~2000 – 2025 and beyond

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In the late 1990’s the earliest discussions for developing a “Census of Marine Life” (CoML) brought up the fundamental need to develop an open-access information system to share existing knowledge and future marine data collections.

In a 1999 essay highlighting the need for the Census, Jesse Ausubel noted that Fred Grassle “…envisaged the development of an on- line ocean biogeographical information system (OBIS). OBIS would enable researchers and resource managers, within a few years, to select any area or volume of water on a global map and bring up information as to what has been reported to live there.”  (Ausubel 1999 https://tos.org/oceanography/article/toward-a-census-of-marine-life  ).

The original organization of OBIS (circa ~2000) focused on developing a central hub for confederating data from existing thematic data centers focusing on fish, cephalopods, octocorals and other marine taxa as well as providing direct data collection support for the emerging Census of Marine Life. While working as the Mapping & Visualization Team for the emerging CoML program, the Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab at Duke University identified the fundamental need for an additional thematic node to aggregate and distribute data on marine mammals, seabirds, and sea turtle megafauna. In 2001 we worked with the A.P. Sloan Foundation and the National Ocean Partnership Program (NOPP) to fill this gap with the development of OBIS-SEAMAP (Note: “SEAMAP,” refers to the specialized Spatial Ecological Analysis of Marine-megavertebrate Animal Populations node of OBIS). A 2009 article highlighted the initial development of the thematic OBIS-SEAMAP node (https://tos.org/oceanography/article/obis-seamap-the-world-data-center-for-marine-mammal-sea-bird-and-sea-turtle ).

While the OBIS network has evolved into national and regional nodes over the years, OBIS-SEAMAP continues to fill the niche for a global information center of highly migratory marine megafauna and continues to grow in data coverage and applications (http://seamap.env.duke.edu).

More than 25+ years since the conceptual outline of the Census of Marine Life and OBIS, the OBIS-SEAMAP team would like to remember the vision of Fred Grassle and the initial support of Jesse Ausubel and others that set this continuing effort in motion.

The OBIS-SEAMAP team

Patrick Halpin, Ei Fujioka and Ben Donnelly and the Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, Duke University.

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Having been with OBIS since 2018, I would like to say that this is a perfect example of international collaboration for the good of Nature and mankind.

Information is shared with sincerity and originates from the best possible scientific practices and processes. This makes OBIS delivering top-notch, credible data.

Izwandy Idris

OBIS Malaysia Node Manager

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The SCAR Antarctic Biodiversity Portal would like to extend our warmest congratulations to the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS) on reaching this incredible milestone – 25 years of dedicated service to understanding and conserving our planet's invaluable marine biodiversity!

SCAR-MarBIN (as we were called back then) was one of the early members (20 years now), and it has been an amazing journey working with a fantastic community across the world on making Marine Biodiversity available to researchers and policymakers.

Anton Van de Putte

Antarctic OBIS Node Manager

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To me OBIS means three fundamental words:

Connection

People connect, life in the ocean connects.

Discovery

We know better what lives where

Growth

The expansion of OBIS community of practice and more data into the platform since the past 25 years ago

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY OBIS!

Carolina Peralta

Caribbean OBIS Node Manager

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OBIS represents a bridge of generations, honouring the past, serving the present, and guiding the future, as a family.

Yi Ming Gan

Antarctic OBIS Data Manager

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Twelve years ago, a global community was introduced to me: the OBIS team. I am truly excited to be part of this great team—and by "great" I don’t just mean in size and numbers, but above all in vision. The vision that scientific data should be open and accessible to everyone.

Contributing to this endeavor through the Mediterranean regional node of OBIS, medOBIS, is a privilege. Throughout this journey, I have had the opportunity to collaborate with outstanding individuals and scientists, and I sincerely hope that, together, we will soon realize the vision of open and FAIR data becoming the standard global scientific approach—for a more equitable and environmentally conscious future for our blue planet!

Dimitra Mavraki

medOBIS NODE Manager

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OBIS has been at the forefront of delivering very high quality marine biological data for quarter of a century - and I've watched it grow from conception to realising the global phenomenon that it is today.

For me, a global database of accessible data is an invaluable research resource, but more importantly, OBIS is a community of like-minded, driven and caring scientists and data managers who share their efforts with camaraderie and dedication.

The OBIS family has enabled me to grow as a data manager, and to develop my skills as a researcher. I have grown alongside OBIS over these past 25 years, and I look forward to many more years of shared endeavours.

John Nicholls

Oceans Past Initiative Data Manager and OBIS Nodes Coordination Group Co-Chair

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It's wonderful that OBIS is turning 25! 🥳

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It's wonderful that OBIS is turning 25! 🥳

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My journey with OBIS began nearly eight years ago when our node manager introduced it to me and nominated me as the Data Manager for IndOBIS. From the very beginning, I was deeply interested in learning about OBIS and felt genuinely proud to be part of such a meaningful global initiative. That enthusiasm has only grown stronger over the years.😬

I still remember the excitement and sense of accomplishment I felt when we published our very first dataset through IndOBIS as data manager — it was a milestone that made our regional efforts feel truly connected to a global vision. (I should thank our inhouse team for providing data).🙃

When the OBIS Secretariat began organizing Task Team meetings, I was initially a bit hesitant to participate.🫠 But the warm welcome I received from the OBIS community quickly put me at ease.😌 Through those interactions, I not only learned a lot but also built lasting professional relationships that continue to inspire me.🤗

Overall, being part of OBIS has been a deeply rewarding personal and professional experience. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved together so far, and I’m confident that in the years ahead, we’ll continue to strengthen OBIS as a trusted, reliable, and collaborative platform for marine biodiversity data.🤟

Wishing OBIS a very happy 25th anniversary — and many more to come! 🙌

Johnny Konjarla

IndOBIS Project Scientist and Data Manager

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Greetings and congratulations on the 25th anniversary of OBIS!

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Greetings and congratulations on the 25th anniversary of OBIS!

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My connection with OBIS dates back to twelve years ago, in 2013, when I first introduced the program to the oceanographic community in Iran. At that time, OBIS was virtually unknown among academics and marine science institutions in the country, and the concept of standardized formats for biodiversity data had yet to take root.

Since then, I have worked through the Iranian National Institute for Oceanography to build national and regional capacity in support of OBIS. The friendly and constructive leadership meetings organized and guided by Mr. Appeltans played a significant role in helping me present and promote the program accurately and effectively in Iran.

Today, I am pleased to see that many PhD students in Iran are using OBIS data in their research, and the term OBIS is now well-recognized within the marine science community.

In closing, I wish all my colleagues in the OBIS program and its Steering Committee many hopeful and successful days ahead.

Abdolvahab Maghsoudlou

PEGO-OBIS Node Manager

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Ocean passion flows

Boundless data, shared with care,

Steady as the tides.

Steve Formel

OBIS Data Officer,

Former OBIS USA Node manager