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The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2017. Over thepast ten years, the content of WoRMS has grown steadily, currently containing more than 242,000accepted marine species names. WoRMS is therefore unique: there is no comparable globaldatabase for marine species, which is driven by a large, global expert community, supported by aData Management Team and can rely on a permanent host institute, dedicated to keeping WoRMSonline. The system has seen several user applications, including facilitating local and regionalmarine species data management and data analysis, but also answering big scientific questions forexample about the estimated number exiting marine species, providing a metric for how much wedo and do not know about life in the oceans.One of the unique features of WoRMS is that it is containing and integrating over 100 global, 12regional and 4 thematic species databases integrated within a common taxonomy. This allowsregional, thematic or ecological expert groups to focus on specific contents of the database,providing additional information and creating community ownership of a specific subcomponentof WoRMS.A regional example of WoRMS is BeRMS, the Belgian Register of Marine Species. Published in 2010,this register enabled to provide an inventory of all marine species encountered within the BelgianExclusive Economic Zone, including the intertidal zone.Now, a major update of the Belgian Census has started. A major literature review, dataminingactivities of marine biogeographic databases such as the European Biogeographic InformationSystem (EurOBIS) and additional species surveys are planned in order to complete this register,allowing to provide a nearly complete assessment of the Belgian marine biodiversity.

International audience; Names are an important reference for all aspects of Biology, Paleontology, Medicine and many other applications. Nomenclatural databases have been developed to document and identify names that have already been established, as well as when, where and by whom they have been proposed and published. There has been a long history of catalogues of names representing the great diversity of diatoms. Some of these catalogues were limited in coverage and impact, others have been more complete, widely distributed and widely cited. The catalogue of VanLandingham, as well as the Index Nominum Algarum and the New Species File at ANSP were collaboratively integrated into a single database and made available on line and presented by Fourtanier and Kociolek as the Catalogue of Diatom Names. In its first iteration, the Catalogue of Diatom Names contained 64,000 names derived from over 12,000 references. It debuted in – 103 – 2005, and in 2010 it was accessed by over 30,000 unique IP addresses and over 5,000,000 downloads. The database grew until 2011, but ceased to be updated since. A new collaboration between an international group of editors has been formed, and working with VLIZ to produce a new, reliable resource for diatom names called DiatomBase (http://www.DiatomBase.org). This project takes the Catalogue of Diatom Names and integrates with the VLIZ Aphia database structure with names from Algaebase, to create a resource for diatom nomenclature and information. DiatomBase will also support a number of nomenclatural and other informatics efforts, as well as bring together images of types and other curated images, as well as linking to other resources. The group of editors, 20 people from 14 countries, has enhanced the speed in which DiatomBase has been developed, and will be critical for the long-term sustainability of the project. DiatomBase will debut at the International Phycological Congress.

Recognition of the threats to biodiversity and its importance to society has led to calls for globally coordinated sampling of trends in marine ecosystems. As a step to defining such efforts, we review current methods of collecting and managing marine biodiversity data. A fundamental component of marine biodiversity is knowing what, where, and when species are present. However, monitoring methods are invariably biased in what taxa, ecological guilds, and body sizes they collect. In addition, the data need to be placed, and/or mapped, into an environmental context. Thus a suite of methods will be needed to encompass representative components of biodiversity in an ecosystem. Some sampling methods can damage habitat and kill species, including unnecessary bycatch. Less destructive alternatives are preferable, especially in conservation areas, such as photography, hydrophones, tagging, acoustics, artificial substrata, light-traps, hook and line, and live-traps. Here we highlight examples of operational international sampling programmes and data management infrastructures, notably the Continuous Plankton Recorder, Reef Life Survey, and detection of Harmful Algal Blooms and MarineGEO. Data management infrastructures include the World Register of Marine Species for species nomenclature and attributes, the Ocean Biogeographic Information System for distribution data, Marine Regions for maps, and Global Marine Environmental Datasets for global environmental data. Existing national sampling programmes, such as fishery trawl surveys and intertidal surveys, may provide a global perspective if their data can be integrated to provide useful information. Less utilised and emerging sampling methods, such as artificial substrata, light-traps, microfossils and eDNA also hold promise for sampling the less studied components of biodiversity. All of these initiatives need to develop international standards and protocols, and long-term plans for their governance and support.

International audience; Catalogue of diatom names resurrected: diatombase will be the new authority resource for diatom names and more.

The aim of a World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) is to provide an authoritative and comprehensive list of names of marine organisms, including information on synonymy. While the highest priority goes to valid names, other names in use are included so that this register can serve as a guide to interpret taxonomic literature. Next to taxonomy, the system can also store distribution information, literature, attributes or traits, specimen information including type localities and images.

Reliable taxonomy underpins communication in all of biology, not least nature conservation and sustainable use of ecosystem resources. The flexibility of taxonomic interpretations, however, presents a serious challenge for end-users of taxonomic concepts. Users need standardised and continuously harmonised taxonomic reference systems, as well as highquality and complete taxonomic data sets, but these are generally lacking for nonspecialists. The solution is in dynamic, expertly curated web-based taxonomic tools. The Pan-European Species-directories Infrastructure (PESI) worked to solve this key issue by providing a taxonomic e-infrastructure for Europe. It strengthened the relevant social (expertise) and information (standards, data and technical) capacities of five major community networks on taxonomic indexing in Europe, which is essential for proper biodiversity assessment and monitoring activities. The key objectives of PESI were: 1) standardisation in taxonomic reference systems, 2) enhancement of the quality and completeness of taxonomic data sets and 3) creation of integrated access to taxonomic information. New information This paper describes the results of PESI and its future prospects, including the involvement in major European biodiversity informatics initiatives and programs., PESI was funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Program (project reference: RI-223806), contributing to the FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES 'Capacities' sub-program under the Coordination and Support Actions (CSA) funding scheme (call: FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2007-2).

Reliable taxonomy underpins communication in all of biology, not least nature conservation and sustainable use of ecosystem resources. The flexibility of taxonomic interpretations,however, presents a serious challenge for end-users of taxonomic concepts. Users need standardised and continuously harmonised taxonomic reference systems, as well as high quality and complete taxonomic data sets, but these are generally lacking for non-specialists. The solution is in dynamic, expertly curated web-based taxonomic tools. The Pan-European Species-directories Infrastructure (PESI) worked to solve this key issue by providing a taxonomic e-infrastructure for Europe. It strengthened the relevant social (expertise) and information (standards, data and technical) capacities of five major community networks on taxonomic indexing in Europe, which is essential for proper biodiversity assessment and monitoring activities. The key objectives of PESI were: 1) standardisation in taxonomic reference systems, 2) enhancement of the quality and completeness of taxonomic data sets and 3) creation of integrated access to taxonomic information. New information This paper describes the results of PESI and its future prospects, including the involvement in major European biodiversity informatics initiatives and programs. Yes

Reliable taxonomy underpins communication in all of biology, not least nature conservation and sustainable use of ecosystem resources. The flexibility of taxonomic interpretations, however, presents a serious challenge for end-users of taxonomic concepts. Users need standardised and continuously harmonised taxonomic reference systems, as well as highquality and complete taxonomic data sets, but these are generally lacking for nonspecialists. The solution is in dynamic, expertly curated web-based taxonomic tools. The Pan-European Species-directories Infrastructure (PESI) worked to solve this key issue by providing a taxonomic e-infrastructure for Europe. It strengthened the relevant social (expertise) and information (standards, data and technical) capacities of five major community networks on taxonomic indexing in Europe, which is essential for proper biodiversity assessment and monitoring activities. The key objectives of PESI were: 1) standardisation in taxonomic reference systems, 2) enhancement of the quality and completeness of taxonomic data sets and 3) creation of integrated access to taxonomic information. New information This paper describes the results of PESI and its future prospects, including the involvement in major European biodiversity informatics initiatives and programs. © de Jong Y et al.

The African Register of Marine Species is a taxonomic database of marine species found along the African coasts. The database was originally developed as the Marine Species Database for Eastern Africa (MASDEA). It was extended thereafter to include species from the entire African coast.Currently it has 24,016 accepted species. The African Register of Marine Species aims to compile and manage an authoritative list of species occurring along the African marine coasts. It is intended to be used as support for biodiversity research for conservation and sustainable management of marine environment. A data mining process was conducted under The Ocean Data and Information Network for Africa (ODINAFRICA) project on three identified taxonomic groups (Molluscs, Porifera and Decapods) with information from books, publications, grey literature and other databases.

Technical guides and work plans for best practices in creating species checklists (e.g., GBIF 2011) are available from the GBIF online resource center (http://www.gbif.org/orc/). These reports explain how to make best use of the dataset standard using Darwin Core term s, presenting and publishing checklists under the framework of Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), and by using the Integrated Publishing Tool (IPT). The present document covers the more general aspects regarding checklists for marine regions. It outlines the steps required to compile distribution notes, to set up a register, and to produce a checklist, but also describes some of stumbling blocks that one might encounter along the way and offers suggestions on how to handle these issues OBIS Canada/Fisheries and Oceans Ca nada, EurOBIS/VLIZ and the UNESCO/IOC project office for IODE, Ostend, Belgium . Published Refereed Current 14.2 Best Practice Guide

For seven years, village-based recorders monitored fish catches and water levels in seven floodplain-associated lakes of the Lower Rufiji, Tanzania. The lakes differ in the number of days and volume of inflows from the river, and thus provide a natural experiment to explore the links between catch composition, income per hour of fishing (IPHF) and hydrological connectivity, and to analyse the response of the users. The fishers adapt their fishing mode and equipment to achieve a rather constant IPHF of between 0.2 and 0.8 US$/fisher/hour. In situations of low connectivity, during a series of drought years, the less well-connected lakes lost many species and became a virtual monoculture of Oreochromis urolepis. Only in one extreme case was average fish size significantly reduced, indicating a high fishing pressure. Catch was therefore highly resilient to shifts toward illegal, non-selective and active fishing techniques. Fish diversity and lake productivity were quickly re-established when the larger lakes reconnected. The potential impacts of changes in the flood hydrograph (through dams, increased abstraction or climate/land-use changes) are assessed, and management options discussed.

From 25 till 26 of February 2010, the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) organized a workshop on biological data products in Oostende, Belgium. This workshop was organized within the framework of the upcoming European Marine Observation and Data Network, EMODnet, launched by the Maritime Policy of the European Commission. 57 participants from 42 excellent institutes involved in marine biological data collection, marine research and marine policy across Europe attended the workshop. The workshop had three main objectives: (1) to discuss the marine biological data availability and gaps in Europe, (2) to demonstrate the prototype of the EMODnet biological data portal to different user groups and (3) to define a set of derived biological data products relevant for private bodies, public authorities and researchers. A huge amount of reliable European marine biological data and information was presented to the public. These data are available and despite some temporal, spatial and taxonomic limitations, data are already very useful for analyses. There was a consensus amongst workshop participants that the look and feel and functionalities of the EMODnet biological prototype portal, visualizing both data observations and data products, were meeting the requirements. Although the user groups were very diverse, being people from the scientific community, people involved in the European marine policy and coastal and marine practitioners, a number of striking similarities amongst data products were found. In the different user discussion groups, four different sets of marine biological data products were identified as priority biological data products being: (1) species distribution maps and trends, (2) species sensitivity and vulnerability maps, (3) species attributes (functional groups, HAB’s, invasive species, red list or protected species) and (4) biodiversity indices. Within the biological EMODnet preparatory action, a few data analysis workshops will be organized in the near future (2011) to produce some of the data products identified during this workshop. The same community and other relevant stakeholders, identified during the meeting will be involved in this process.

A large-scale database concerning benthic copepods from the Arctic, Baltic Sea, North Sea, British Isles, Adriatic Sea and Crete was compiled to assess species richness, biodiversity, communities, ecological range size and biogeographical patterns. The Adriatic showed the highest evenness and the most species-rich communities. Assemblages from the North Sea, British Isles, Baltic and Crete had a lower evenness. The British Isles were characterised by impoverished communities. The ecological specificity of copepod species showed two diverging trends: higher specificity of species in more diverse assemblages was observed in the Adriatic, North Sea and Baltic. A uniformly high species specificity disregarding sample diversity was found on Crete and in the British Isles. Benthic copepod communities showed distinct patterns that clearly fit the predefined geographical regions. Communities were distinguishable and ß-diversity was found to be high around Europe, indicating a high species turnover on the scale of this investigation. The British Isles and the North Sea were found to be faunistic links to the Baltic and the Arctic.