Creating a modern database from archive material - The Norman Holme archive: Interpretation of marine field research notebooks in the historical context of the MBA, 1958-83

This document provides details of the transfer of the Norman Holme archive data held in the National Marine Biological Library onto a modern database, specifically Marine Recorder. A key part in the creation of the database was the retrieval of a large amount of information recorded in field notebooks and on loosely-bound sheets of paper. As this work involved amending, interpreting and updating the available information, it was felt that an accurate record of this process should exist to allow scientists of the future to be able to clearly link the modern database to the archive material. This document also provides details of external information sources that were used to enhance and qualify the historical interpretation, such as estimating volumes and species abundances.

Continuous Plankton Recorder Database: evolution, current uses and future directions.

The Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey, operated by the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (SAHFOS), is the largest plankton monitoring programme in the world and has spanned >70 yr. The dataset contains information from ~200 000 samples, with over 2.3 million records of individual taxa. Here we outline the evolution of the CPR database through changes in technology, and how this has increased data access. Recent high-impact publications and the expanded role of CPR data in marine management demonstrate the usefulness of the dataset. We argue that solely supplying data to the research community is not sufficient in the current research climate; to promote wider use, additional tools need to be developed to provide visual representation and summary statistics. We outline 2 software visualisation tools, SAHFOS WinCPR and the digital CPR Atlas, which provide access to CPR data for both researchers and non-plankton specialists. We also describe future directions of the database, data policy and the development of visualisation tools. We believe that the approach at SAHFOS to increase data accessibility and provide new visualisation tools has enhanced awareness of the data and led to the financial security of the organisation; it also provides a good model of how long-term monitoring programmes can evolve to help secure their future.

History of the Continuous Plankton Recorder Database. Proceedings of 'The Colour of Ocean Data' Symposium, Brussels, 25-27 November 2002.

The Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey has operated in the North Atlantic and North Sea since 1931, providing a unitque multi-decadal dataset of plankton abundance. Over the period since 1931 technology has advanced and the system for storing the CPR data has developed considerably. From 1969 an electronic database was developed to store the results of CPR analysis. Since that time the CPR database has undergone a number of changes due to performance related factors such as processor speed and disk capacity as well as economic factors such as the cost of software. These issues have been overcome and the system for storing and retrieving the data has become more user friendly at every development stage.

The CPR Survey (1948-1997): a gridded database browser of plankton abundance in the North Sea.

The Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey provides a unique multi- decadal dataset on the abundance of plankton in the North Sea and North Atlantic and is one of only a few monitoring programmes operating at a large spatio- temporal scale. The results of all samples analysed from the survey since 1946 are stored on an Access Database at the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (SAHFOS) in Plymouth. The database is large, containing more than two million records (~80 million data points, if zero results are added) for more than 450 taxonomic entities. An open data policy is operated by SAHFOS. However, the data are not on-line and so access by scientists and others wishing to use the results is not interactive. Requests for data are dealt with by the Database Manager. To facilitate access to the data from the North Sea, which is an area of high research interest, a selected set of data for key phytoplankton and zooplankton species has been processed in a form that makes them readily available on CD for research and other applications. A set of MATLAB tools has been developed to provide an interpolated spatio-temporal description of plankton sampled by the CPR in the North Sea, as well as easy and fast access to users in the form of a browser. Using geostatistical techniques, plankton abundance values have been interpolated on a regular grid covering the North Sea. The grid is established on centres of 1 degree longitude x 0.5 degree latitude (~32 x 30 nautical miles). Based on a monthly temporal resolution over a fifty-year period (1948-1997), 600 distribution maps have been produced for 54 zooplankton species, and 480 distribution maps for 57 phytoplankton species over the shorter period 1958-1997. The gridded database has been developed in a user-friendly form and incorporates, as a package on a CD, a set of options for visualisation and interpretation, including the facility to plot maps for selected species by month, year, groups of months or years, long-term means or as time series and contour plots. This study constitutes the first application of an easily accessed and interactive gridded database of plankton abundance in the North Sea. As a further development the MATLAB browser is being converted to a user- friendly Windows-compatible format (WinCPR) for release on CD and via the Web in 2003.

Marine microplankton diversity database

Many macroecological theories have been developed to study the diversity on our planet. All these theories require the existence of consistent databases to test their predictions. In this work, we compiled a data set of marine microplankton species abundances at 788 stations with an extensive geographical coverage. Data were collected on different oceanographic cruises between 1992 and 2002. This database consists of abundances (cells/mL) for each species at each station and depth, together with estimates of the biomass and biovolume for each species. One of the key strengths in this database is that species identifications were made by the same taxonomist, which provides greater strength to the collection and ensures that estimates of species diversity are reliable. Environmental information has also been compiled at each station (chlorophyll, temperature, photosynthetically active radiation [PAR], nutrients) in order to have a characterization of the study area and to be used in studies on the environmental and biological controls of marine biodiversity.