The Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON) is a global community of practice for the sustained collection, curation, and analysis of marine biodiversity data. It informs on the status and trends of life in the sea. MBON operates within the framework of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) and GEO Blue Planet to inform society of changes on ecosystem services. The role of the MBON is to broker relationships and activities. The MBON, GOOS, and OBIS have agreed to leverage the strengths and broad partnerships and acknowledged MBON’s role to inform and assist the development of national and regional observing networks and Essential Biodiversity Variables.
Over the last decade, omics theory, methods, and applications have been transferred from the research domain into operational and long-term observation settings. However, the impact of omics observation is strongly dampened by the lack of global, standardized, and well- contextualized datasets and accompanying best practices. There is a need to engage international networks of omics observers and collectively interface with established global observation programs.
The PacMAN project will be an excellent demonstration project of how omics data can be exchanged in a FAIR-compliant manner and MBON will make sure the best practices in PacMAN are broadly communicated with other observing programmes. MBON leaders have agreed to help advance this project and to help coordinate with the MBON community. Specifically, the MBON leads have agreed to serve in this project’s advisory board.