Foraminifera in the World Register of Marine Species (Worms) Taxonomic Database

ABSTRACT Most foraminiferal research is founded on sound taxonomy. To clearly communicate such research, similar species concepts and consistent use of names is desirable. As a contribution to this larger goal, the World Foraminifera Database (http://www.marinespecies.org/foraminifera) was set up in 2010 as a subset within the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). The purpose is to provide an authoritative, open-access inventory of all foraminiferal taxonomic names. The inventory is almost complete for both fossil and Recent foraminiferal taxa, containing 4932 generic and 55,884 species (including infraspecies) names. There are ∼61,000 genus-species combinations of which ∼54,600 are currently “accepted” species and infraspecies (with 9600 extant). Associated data includes 14,700 linked foraminiferal literature sources, ∼6600 images, and species-level links to many other databases and images, such as the Cushman Collection (Smithsonian Institution), American Museum of Natural History, Mikrotax (planktic foraminifera), GenBank, and Zootaxon. The WoRMS database is owned by the global taxonomic community and hosted and serviced by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), Belgium. We recommend that all researchers working with foraminifera both use and contribute to the World Foraminifera Database, as that will improve the accuracy of the database's content and save investigators many hours of searching elsewhere.

Implementation of a Data Management Quality Management Framework at the Marine Institute, Ireland

The International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC-IODE) released a quality management framework for its National Oceanographic Data Centre (NODC) network in 2013. This document is intended, amongst other goals, to provide a means of assistance for NODCs to establish organisational data management quality management systems. The IOC-IODE’s framework also promotes the accreditation of NODCs which have implemented a Data Management Quality Management Framework adhering to the guidelines laid out in the IOC-IODE’s framework. In its submission for IOCE-IODE accreditation, Ireland’s National Marine Data Centre (hosted by the Marine Institute) included a Data Management Quality Management model; a manual detailing this model and how it is implemented across the scientific and environmental data producing areas of the Marine Institute; and, at a more practical level, an implementation pack consisting of a number of templates to assist in the compilation of the documentation required by the model and the manual.

Review of DSP Toxicity in Ireland: Long-Term Trend Impacts, Biodiversity and Toxin Profiles from a Monitoring Perspective

The purpose of this work is to review all the historical monitoring data gathered by the Marine Institute, the national reference laboratory for marine biotoxins in Ireland, including all the biological and chemical data from 2005 to 2017, in relation to diarrheic shellfish poisoning (DSP) toxicity in shellfish production. The data reviewed comprises over 25,595 water samples, which were preserved in Lugol’s iodine and analysed for the abundance and composition of marine microalgae by light microscopy, and 18,166 records of shellfish flesh samples, which were analysed using LC-MS/MS for the presence and concentration of the compounds okadaic acid (OA), dinophysistoxins-1 (DTX-1), dinophysistoxins-2 (DTX-2) and their hydrolysed esters, as well as pectenotoxins (PTXs). The results of this review suggest that DSP toxicity events around the coast of Ireland occur annually. According to the data reviewed, there has not been an increase in the periodicity or intensity of such events during the study period. Although the diversity of the Dinophysis species on the coast of Ireland is large, with 10 species recorded, the two main species associated with DSP events in Ireland are D. acuta and D. acuminata. Moreover, the main toxic compounds associated with these species are OA and DTX-2, but concentrations of the hydrolysed esters are generally found in higher amounts than the parent compounds in the shellfish samples. When D. acuta is dominant in the water samples, the DSP toxicity increases in intensity, and DTX-2 becomes the prevalent toxin. Pectenotoxins have only been analysed and reported since 2012, and these compounds had not been associated with toxic events in Ireland; however, in 2014, concentrations of these compounds were quantitated for the first time, and the data suggest that this toxic event was associated with an unusually high number of observations of D. tripos that year. The areas of the country most affected by DSP outbreaks are those engaging in long-line mussel (Mytilus edulis) aquaculture.

Validation of method for determination total carbon, inorganic carbon and total organic carbon in marine waters

Validation is a process of setting parameters characterizing the proficiency of actions and limitations of a method and an assessment of its usefulness for particular purposes. As a result, it ensures that the analysis process is carried out in a reliable and precise way and gives reliable results. For the validation process marine water was used, as well as the addition of standard solutions. Uncertainty in the results, limit of quantification, precision, repeatability and reproducibility, recovery and accuracy of the method were obtained. The results of the validation of the method for determination of total inorganic and organic carbon in marine waters are discussed in this paper. For this purpose, a Shimadzu analyser TOC-L was used. The discussed method is based on infrared detection NDIR. A halogen scrubber type B was used for determined the compounds. This allowed the analysis time at the stage of the sample preparation to be shortened. It increased the absorption of salt contained in a sample, as a result of which, the dilution stage could be omitted, and the final result is affected by a smaller error. The method of the validation for determination of total inorganic and organic carbon received accreditation of the Polish Centre for Accreditation and joined a wide range of the analyses carried out in the Laboratory of the Department of Environment Protection of the Marine Institute in Gdańsk.

A novel inter-comparison of nutrient analysis at sea: recommendations to enhance comparability of open ocean nutrient data

An inter-comparison study has been carried out on the analysis of inorganic nutrients at sea following the operation of two nutrient analysers simultaneously on the GO-SHIP A02 trans-Atlantic survey in May 2017. Both instruments were Skalar San++ Continuous Flow Analysers, one from the Marine Institute, Ireland and the other from Dalhousie University, Canada, each operated by their own laboratory analysts following GO-SHIP guidelines, while adopting their existing laboratory methods. High quality control of the nutrient analysis was achieved on both instruments and there was high comparability between the two datasets. Vertical profiles of nutrients also compared well with those collected in 1997 along the same A02 transect by the World Ocean Circulation Experiment. The comparison of the two 2017 datasets and individual laboratory methods, did however raise some interesting questions on the comparison of nutrients analysed from different systems, in particular the calibration range of daily standards and its influence on low nutrient samples, and the importance of using certified reference materials of high and low concentrations to identify bias in the data. Based on the results from this inter-comparison, a number of recommendations have been suggested that we feel will enhance the existing GO-SHIP guidelines to improve the comparability of global nutrient datasets. The A02 nutrient dataset is currently available at the National Oceanographic Data Centre of Ireland; http://dx.doi.org/10.20393/CE49BC4C-91CC-41B9-A07F-D4E36B18B26F.

Plastic Naturecultures

A jellyfish surrounds a plastic fragment, merging the synthetic material with its body; a water agency poster warns of dangerous plastic bottle ‘fish’ in the Mediterranean; marine organisms take shelter on and under synthetic materials. These are the denizens of a growing realm marine ecologists call the ‘plastisphere’, where sea life and plastics meet. Building upon multispecies ethnography, science and technology studies interrogations of nature/culture divides and the practical work of classification, this article explores the indeterminacy – the very plasticity – of the category of ‘species’ as it is engaged in seriousness and irony, with living and nonliving bodies. First, I draw on participant observation at a nonprofit marine institute laboratory in California to trace the travels of plastic-creatures through attempts to disentangle them in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. Here volunteers sort tiny plastic bits from animal ones under the microscope, enacting material boundaries as they decide what gets counted as life (not plastic) and what does not (plastic). Second, I follow movements of plastic-creatures through public education campaigns, paying particular attention to assumptions about belonging and agency enacted with assumptions about whether and when plastic-species should or should not meet. I argue that the ‘danger’ of plastic relationships lurks not in associations but in the very categories used to know and live with forms of plastic and forms of life, in the kinds of belonging that emerge with kinds of materials, and in the failure to recognize the impossibility of their separation.

IRMNG 2006–2016: 10 years of a global taxonomic database

IRMNG, the Interim Register of Marine and Nonmarine Genera, was commenced in 2006 as an initiative of the Australian OBIS Node (OBIS Australia) following an analysis of the taxonomic names management needs of OBIS, the Ocean Biogeographic Information System. The main objectives were to produce a hierarchical classification of all life, both extant and fossil, to at least genus level (and to species as data were readily available) and to provide a tool to distinguish marine from nonmarine, and extant from fossil taxa. Over its first 10 years of operation IRMNG has acquired some 487,000 of an estimated c.500,000 published genus names (including both valid names and synonyms) in addition to almost 1.8 million species names, of which 1.3 million are considered valid. Throughout this time IRMNG data have been available for public query via a dedicated web interface based at CSIRO in Australia, as well as being supplied as bulk downloads for use by a range of global biodiversity projects. Over the period 2014-2016 responsibility for the system has been passed to the Data Centre Division of the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) in Belgium, which will be continuing the maintenance and development of IRMNG at its new web location, www.irmng.org.