Marine biodiversity data are essential to measure and study the ecosystem health of maritime basins. These data are often collected with limited spatial and temporal scope and are scattered over different organizations in small datasets for a specific species group or habitat. Therefore there is a continuous need to assemble these individual datasets, and process them into interoperable biological data products for assessing the environmental state of overall ecosystems and complete sea basins. One of the main objectives of EMODnet Biology is to allow public access and viewing of data, metadata and data products of marine species occurring in European marine waters through the EMODnet Biology Data Portal.

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).

IMNGS is a platform that uniformly and systematically screens for, retrieves, processes, and analyses all available prokaryotic 16S rRNA gene amplicon datasets from public repositories and uses them to build sample-specific sequence databases and OTU-based profiles. The retrieved information can be used to address questions of relevance in microbial ecology, for example with respect to the occurrence of specific microorganisms in different ecosystems or to perform targeted diversity studies. IMNGS also offers a complete pipeline for de novo analysis of a user's own raw amplicon sequencing data generated using the Illumina technology. Due to the personalised nature of many functions and the high computational cost related to the performed tasks, only registered users can submit jobs (registration can be done via the IMNGS home page; regsiter there as a Guest to learn more about what it can do). The IMNGS web interface can then be used to: search and select datasets/samples (runs), create and launch jobs, and inspect the outputs of the jobs. Developed by: Ilias Lagkouvardos, Technical university of Munich (TUM) Used data resources: SRA repository amplicon studies, user query 16S sequence, user raw amplicon sequences Used in tools: USEARCH Technology or platform: Django, Python, PostgreSQL

The Nordic Microalgae website is a source of information about microalgae and related organisms in the Nordic area, i.e. the Baltic Sea, the North East Atlantic and lakes, rivers and streams in the area. This site is of use for science, education, environmental monitoring, etc. The website offers a quick view, a taxon tree, several galleries with collections of images, a forum, Nordic Microalgae checklists and tools. Developed by: Nordic Microalgae is developed and operated by the Swedish Meterological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) with funding from the Swedish LifeWatch project.

TITAN comprises a well-grounded stack of Big Data technologies including Apache Kafka for inter-component communication, Apache Avro for data serialisation and Apache Spark for data analytics. Furthermore, DRAMA framework is the underlying workflow orchestrator engine used by TITAN.

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).

SHARK ("Svenskt HavsARKiv" / "Swedish Ocean Archive") contains marine environmental monitoring data from the seas surrounding Sweden. SHARKweb is the main web application where it is possible to search and download data from SHARK. SHARKdata is another way to access the same sets of data, but the target audience is other systems which want to harvest data and use it, or to publish the data in other systems, portals, etc. SHARKdata is based on modules and new modules will be developed over time. Species observations is a module where observations are extracted from other datasets. Special response formats are available such as KML and simple map. The Resources module contains administrative data. It can contain files for header translations, screening of data, taxonomic information, etc. Developed by: SHARKdata is developed by the Oceanographic Unit of the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI). The software is a product of the Swedish LifeWatch project funded by the Swedish Research Council. Technology or platform: SHARKdata is written in Python 2.7 and based on the Django web framework. All code developed in the project is open source and published under the MIT license.

This vLab comprises of two online coupled models, which are parameterised and initialised for the specific conditions at a few specifically identified areas for which the required datasets exist. In an attempt to make the tool user friendly a graphic user interface (GUI) developed in the course of previous projects will be used. The GUI allows the user to view model results dynamically through any internet browser. Model results will be stored at the HCMR servers and the user will be able to select the area, scenario, and parameter required, which will then be returned as results in the form of plots. All model parameters and options will be available to the user online. The ultimate operation, therefore, of this vLab will be to allow the user to submit a request for the model to run under a different scenario than those already available.

One of the virtual laboratories developed by LifeWatch Belgium is the Belgian LifeWatch eLab. This online application allows users to standardise, analyse and visualise their data, making use of web services built on top of internal and external reference databases. The ultimate goal of LifeWatch is to set up a network for data exchange and data analysis through web services. Web services are systems that allow communication between two computers over the web, and allow the user to access the most recent and up-to-date information directly from within other applications. Within LifeWatch Belgium, several web services are available to standardise, analyse and visualise your data, and to extract additional data from several sources. The user can select several data services (taxonomic, geographic, thematic, etc.) and run them successively through a straightforward online user interface. You can also use the LifeWatch.be web services in a concatenated way, i.e. the output of one web service is the input for the next web service. Establishing such workflows helps solving (complicated) biological questions. Several use cases demonstrate the use of the LifeWatch web services. So as to facilitate the use of the LifeWatch web services, several applications and tools were documented in use cases and tutorials. These can be found on the links below, as well as on the specific websites of software packages and Github repositories. The Belgian LifeWatch E-Lab online application allows users to standardize, analyze and visualize their data, making use of web services built on top of internal and external reference databases. A user can select several data services (taxonomic, geographic, thematic, etc.) and run them successively through a straightforward user interface. As explained in the user guide, the LifeWatch.be web services can be used in a concatenated way, i.e. the output of one web service is the input for the next web service.

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.