In the marine domain, LifeWatch provides data services for a large and broad user community dealing with a variety of data types. Activities include provision of data tools and services for taxonomic, ecological, omics, biogeographic, environmental and biological observation data. Tools for data archiving, access, quality control, standardization, harmonization, analysis and publication are integrated in a Marine Virtual Research Environment (Marine VRE). In this regard, the LifeWatch Marine VRE aspires to be the transparent gateway to access, analyze and develop marine data resources. The Marine VRE is built on three components: - Through the "Access" page, the user can retrieve marine biodiversity and ecosystem data. For all resources listed, a description of the data on offer is available and connecting web links are displayed. - Arriving at the "Analyze" page, one can find applications and tools for advanced calculations, modelling and data processing. Through these environments, state-of-the-art workflows and modelling approaches are shared and accessible to all. - Finally, the "Develop" page allows the user to access data services, as well as develop their own. Documented R scripts and tutorials, outputs from expert workshops and detailed methodological workflow of certain data products or scientific publications are only a few examples of how Marine VRE puts the sharing of data and expertise to practice. Now, a marine researcher can access a multitude of available data, find the appropriate tools for analysis, apply and develop existing expertise through data services. Facilitating a scientist's pursuit of knowledge, the LifeWatch Marine VRE contributes to high quality marine research.

The Swedish Biodiversity Data Infrastructure is an open-source software e-infrastructure financed by the Swedish Research Council and developed in close collaboration with the Living Atlases community and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. The infrastructure will make biodiversity data available, provide powerful analysis and visualization tools, and thereby offer new opportunities for innovative and interdisciplinary research on biodiversity and ecosystems. The core mission of SBDI is to support Open Science and the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles in biodiversity and ecosystems research. The SBDI consortium includes 11 universities and government agencies in Sweden.

The objective of RAMS is to compile and manage an authoritative taxonomic list of species occurring in the Antarctic marine environment, for establishing a standard reference for marine biodiversity research, conservation and sustainable management. The taxonomic scope of RAMS covers Antarctic species from the three realms of the Southern Ocean: the sea floor (meio-, macro- and megazoobenthos; micro- and macrophytobenthos), the water column (phytoplankton, zooplankton, nekton) and the sea-ice. Developed by: The RAMS website and databases are developed and hosted by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ). The RAMS content is managed by an Editorial Board comprising an Executive Committee and associate Taxonomic Editors. The RAMS Executive Committee plays an advising role in the development of RAMS and proposes Taxonomic Editors. It links with the SCAR-MarBIN International Steering Committee. To allow RAMS to be as exhaustive as possible, the role of the network of Taxonomic Editors is crucial. These Taxonomic Editors are world experts on the taxonomy of their relevant taxa and are in charge of the content and quality control of data for their specific group. Used data resources: A series of preliminary species lists of Antarctic marine invertebrates, mostly for macrobenthic groups, were compiled by Andrew Clarke and Nadine Johnston of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), with funding from the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office and British Antarctic Survey. These lists have been or are being checked and updated by taxonomic experts.

WRIMS records which marine species in the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) have been introduced deliberately or accidentally by human activities to geographic areas outside their native range. It excludes species that colonized new locations naturally (so called 'range extensions'), even if in response to climate change. WRIMS notes the origin (source location) of the species at a particular location by country, sea area and/or latitude longitude as available. If the species is reported to have caused ecological or economic impacts it is considered invasive in that location. Each record is linked to a source publication or specialist database. A glossary of terminology is available. Species of particular concern because of being invasive have a peer-reviewed profile on the Global Invasive Species Database (GISD). In using WRIMS, users need to consider possible species misidentifications in the sources, and that for some species it is uncertain which are their native and introduced ranges. Whether a species is 'invasive' can vary between locations and over time at a particular location. The WRIMS data resulted from a data collection project within the framework of EMODnet Biology, and was established by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) in cooperation with the IUCN Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG). The WRIMS website is developed and hosted by VLIZ. WRIMS is part of the consolidated database Aphia, the database behind the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS).

iMarine is an open and collaborative initiative aimed at supporting the implementation of the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries management and the conservation of living marine resources. The ultimate goal of iMarine is to contribute to sustainable environmental management with invaluable direct or indirect benefits to the future of our planet, from climate change mitigation and marine biodiversity loss containment to poverty alleviation and disaster risk reduction. iMarine provides an e-infrastructure that facilitates open access and the sharing of a multitude of data, collaborative analysis, processing and mining processing, as well as the publication and dissemination of newly generated knowledge. This is a complex process because it requires coordination with many actors and initiatives across different scientific and operational domains. It is also important to tackle data heterogeneity while relying on a multitude of resources and technologies, some of which are not yet ripe or powerful enough to meet the given requirements. Developed by: iMarine is co-funded by the European Commission, DG Connect Unit, under Framework Programme 7 and involves 13 international partners.

The Southern Ocean waters to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula are warming faster than almost any other place on Earth. This area of most rapid environmental change was, among others, targeted by the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML) in its collection of biogeographic information. Such biogeographic information is of fundamental importance for monitoring biodiversity, discovering biodiversity hotspots, defining ecoregions and detecting the impacts of environmental changes. It is the preliminary and necessary step in designing marine protected areas in a changing ocean. At the end of five years of extensive biodiversity exploration and assessment by CAML and the OBIS Antarctic Node (the SCAR Marine Biodiversity Information Network, SCAR-MarBIN), a new initiative, the multi-authored "Biogeographic Atlas of the Southern Ocean", has been established. Under the aegis of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the aim of the Atlas is to provide an up-to-date synthesis of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic biogeographic knowledge and to make available a new comprehensive online resource for visualization, analysis and modeling of species distribution. It will constitute a major scientific output of CAML and SCAR-MarBIN, as well as being a significant legacy of CoML and the International Polar Year to fulfill the needs of biogeographic information for science, conservation, monitoring and sustainable management of the changing Southern Ocean. It will be of direct benefit to the Antarctic Treaty and associated bodies such as the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. Developed by: Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML) and the OBIS Antarctic Node (the SCAR Marine Biodiversity Information Network, SCAR-MarBIN).

The LifeWatch Italy national node has realised the Alien and Invasive Species Virtual Research Environment (Alien Species VRE) for supporting researchers to address basic and applied studies on ecosystem vulnerability to alien species arrival. The Alien Species VRE allows to: - access and download harmonised data on the national distribution of species of fauna and flora belonging to different habitats (marine, fresh and transitional waters, and terrestrial) published through the LifeWatch Italy Data Portal and distributed by the LifeWatch ERIC Metadata Catalogue; - upload their own datasets structured according to the LifeWatch Italy Data Schema in order to execute the service included in the VRE.

The LifeWatch Italy national node has realised the Phytoplankton Virtual Research Environment (Phyto VRE) for supporting researchers to address basic and applied studies on phytoplankton ecology at a level of resolution going from individual cells to whole assemblages. The Phyto VRE enables researchers to: - produce harmonised data on taxonomy and morphological traits by using the Atlas of Phytoplankton, Atlas of Shapes and Phytoplankton Traits Thesaurus; - access, download, and select LifeWatch Italy datasets (published through the LifeWatch Italy Data Portal and distributed by the LifeWatch ERIC Metadata Catalogue) or upload their own datasets structured according to the Phyto template based on the LifeWatch Italy Data Schema in order to execute the services included in the VRE; - faciliatate the computation of morphological and demographic traits (such as hidden dimension, biovolume, surface area, surface-volume ratio, cell carbon content, etc.) and investigate their distribution patterns at different levels of data aggregation (i.e. spatial, temporal, taxonomic) by means of services, which automate a set of operations written in the R language.

The MicroCTvlab is a service which was created in order to present and disseminate micro-CT (micro-computed tomography) datasets through the framework of the LifeWatchGreece project. This service offers virtual galleries and online tools for the 3D manipulation of the micro-CT datasets. The creation and dissemination of these "cyber-specimens" aim to contribute to a massive digitization of biological collections. The Micro-CT is a web application compatible with all major web browsers. So far, 24 micro-CT datasets have been published, representing a selection of biological and biomedical samples scanned with different parameters. On the main page, scans are presented as a preview of images accompanied by the title of the dataset. When any of these micro-CT datasets is selected by the user, the dataset details are displayed in four tabs, featuring: a) an overview page; b) an interactive tool for manipulating the 3D representation; c) a preview video and d) metadata for the dataset. A Micro-CT Rest API is also available for getting and creating new content.

MedOBIS is the Regional OBIS Node for the Mediterranean Sea. It is hosted by the Institute of Marine Biology, Biotechnology and Aquaculture https://imbbc.hcmr.gr/ (IMBBC), Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, HCMR https://www.hcmr.gr/en/ , Heraklion (Crete). Launched in 2003, it has already been operational in 2005 as a Tier 3 Node of EurOBIS and covered the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Under the European projects EMODNET and LifeWatchGreece (started in 2013), it became a Tier 2 node and extended to all Mediterranean Sea. MedOBIS provides access to data from a wide range of sources and time periods, including new and historical data sets. MedOBIS actively contributes to global scientific efforts for FAIR and OPEN data. The MedOBIS vLab consists of the MedOBIS IPT (Integrated Publishing Toolkit- http://ipt.medobis.eu/), which is available for sharing data and metadata, and Medobis viewer as a geodata tool, developed by open layers for visualization. MedOBIS can accept any data files from its data sources or data providers, and it publishes these data on its Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT), which is harvested by central OBIS. The Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) is developed and maintained by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). For more information check here: https://obis.org/manual/contribute/ MedOBIS currently (2021) hosts 54 datasets, covering the period 1844 to 2017, with over 77,000 occurrence records accompanied with taxonomical, trait, geographical and environmental information. Login is required to access the vLab; while the IPT is open to any user.