Workshop on Enhancing Biological Data Sharing to Advance Deep-Sea Taxonomy (ISA)

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is convening a workshop on Enhancing Biological Data Sharing to Advance Deep-Sea Taxonomy at the Institute of Tropical Biology of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, from 3-6 October 2023, in collaboration with the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries of the Republic of Korea (MOF) and the National Marine Biodiversity Institute of Korea (MABIK).

To further enhance the understanding of deep-sea biodiversity, the ISA Sustainable Seabed Knowledge Initiative (SSKI) has designed several actions for improving deep-sea species cataloguing, promoting data sharing, and building capacity on deep-sea taxonomy.

These actions will lead to the generation of an unprecedent amount of deep-sea biological data, including the description of at least 1,000 new deep-sea species by 2030.

A major challenge in large scale collective research is the standardization and interoperability of data, with some initiatives, such as the Darwin Core making progress towards defining standards and vocabularies to facilitate biodiversity data sharing and integration.

Standardizing and innovating methodologies for deep-sea biodiversity assessment, including taxonomic identification and description in the Area, is one of the six strategic research priorities identified in ISA Action Plan in support of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development^[1].

This workshop builds on the outcomes of the previous editions of the ISA workshop series on deep-sea taxonomic standardization, organized in collaboration with MABIK. It will focus on best practices for deep-sea taxonomic research to generate FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data and enhance capacity in sharing deep-sea biological data.

Link: Workshop on Enhancing Biological Data Sharing to Advance Deep-Sea Taxonomy – International Seabed Authority (isa.org.jm)