Institute of Marine Affairs Species Checklist

Paul Nelson1, Cherisse Persad1, Paul Nelson2

1 Institute of Marine Affairs, Hilltop Lane, Chaguaramas, Trinidad And Tobago; 2 Institute of Marine Affairs, Hilltop Lane, Chaguaramas, Trinidad And Tobago

Corresponding author(s): Paul Nelson (pnelson@ima.gov.tt), Cherisse Persad (chpersad@ima.gov.tt)

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Resource Citation

Institute of Marine Affairs Species Checklist. v1.0. Dataset/Checklist. https://ipt.gbif.org/resource?r=ima_checklist&amp;v=1.0

Abstract

The Institute of Marine Affairs Species Checklist Data is derived from its historical manuscripts which examined species distribution in Trinidad & Tobago during the years 1985-2007.

Keywords: Checklist, Derivedfromoccurrence, Corals, Macroalgae, Sponges, Demospongiae, Anthozoa, Trinidad, Tobago, Trinidad and Tobago

Project details

Project title: Marine Biodiversity Hub
Personnel: Alana Jute
Funding: The IMA has received an Institution-level biodiversity data mobilization grant from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility's (GBIF's) Biodiversity Information for Development (BID) programme- funded by the European Union- to develop a centralised Marine Biodiversity Hub (MBH). 
Study area descriptions/descriptor: The study area of research at the Institute of Marine Affairs (IMA) is mainly focused in the waters of the Trinidad and Tobago Economic Exclusion Zone (TT EEZ) with some past projects covering marine species in Venezuela, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada. Marine biodiversity data has been collected by the IMA since 1978 and the volume of data collected continues to grow each year.

The studies done cover a wide array of taxonomic coverage including but not limited to corals, fish, sponges, macroalgae and polychaetes. 
Design description: As the primary government agency focused on researching and monitoring marine biodiversity over the last 40 years, the IMA holds the largest repository of marine biodiversity data in the country. The data that is available is in a myriad of forms and not centralised or searchable. As a
result, it is not readily accessible to IMA researchers, government agencies, academia, or the public. This limits research activities, informing of policy, and civil society activities undertaken to reduce the negative impacts of human activities on marine biodiversity. 

This project aims to do the following: 
(1) resolve the absence of a standard protocol for responsible data management 
(2) improve the efficiency of data management and dissemination e.g. national assessments (such as State of the Marine Environment reports), regional assessments (such as the Cartagena Convention’s State of the Convention Area Report) and international reporting (such as for the
Sustainable Development Goals and United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity targets), 
(3) encourage integrative research to support government policy and decision making, 
(4) improve the accessibility of data to the general public (TTBIS/ GBIF). 

The marine data mobilized through GBIF will fill important knowledge gaps on the biodiversity of marine life, and highlight the many marine ecosystems present in T&T. The data will add to regional and global assessments of marine biodiversity. This should assist with bringing international awareness on the state of marine biodiversity in T&T, and lead to potential conservation and research projects.
 
The data sources for the MBH will include literature citations for scientific reports which discuss marine biodiversity but no longer have the raw data available for them as well as ongoing monitoring data from institutional projects such as coral reef health monitoring. Dependent on the metadata available, the scientific reports will be categorized into checklist, occurrence and event sheets.

Past available biodiversity data at the Institute has been digitized and are undergoing the standardization process to adhere to the Darwin Core principles.

Data published through GBIF: https://ipt.gbif.org/resource?r=ima_checklist

Taxonomic coverage

General taxonomic coverage description: This datasets consists of biodiversity data derived from six different scientific manuscripts produced by Researchers at the Institute of Marine Affairs. The research projects associated with these manuscripts covered a wide array of marine species including, but not limited to, Sponges of Class Demospongiae from Trinidad and Tobago; Octocorals from Trinidad and Tobago; and ahermatypic shallow-water corals of Trinidad. There is also marine biodiversity data derived from ecological surveys done around the reefs of Tobago. 
Taxonomic ranks
Class: Demospongiae, Anthozoa, Ulvophyceae, Phaeophyceae, Florideophyceae, Compsopogonophyceae, Hydrozoa, Hexanauplia, Polychaeta, Malacostraca, Gastropoda, Crinoidea, Ophiuroidea, Echinoidea, Actinopterygii
Common names: Sponges

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: The waters surrounding the Caribbean Islands where biodiversity information was collected by members of the Institute of Marine Affairs.
Coordinates: 9°11'20.4''N and 25°33'43.2''N Latitude; 84°59'24''W and 55°11'42''W Longitude 

Temporal coverage: January 1, 1978 - December 31, 2006

Methods

Method step description: The checklist data was derived from past scientific reports published by the Institute's researchers. The marine biodiversity data was derived from the manuscripts and then cross-checked using the Global Biodiversity Information Facility's Species Name Matching Tool to ensure that the scientific names used were up-to-date. 
Study extent description: The study area for this data was focused on the waters in the Trinidad and Tobago Economic Exclusion Zone (TT EEZ).
Sampling description: This data was derived using past scientific reports published by the Institute of Marine Affairs through its relevant researchers. The data was collected by the researchers by way of ecological surveys through snorkel and S.C.U.B.A. 
Quality control description: The derived biodiversity data was cross checked using the Global Biodiversity Information Facility's Species Name Matching Tool to ensure that the scientific names used were the globally accepted names. 

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive Institute of Marine Affairs Species Checklist
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: https://ipt.gbif.org/archive.do?r=ima_checklist
Publication date of data: 2022-05-13
Language: English
Licences of use: Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2022-05-09
Hierarchy level: Dataset