SCAR-MARINE BIODIVERSITY INFORMATION NETWORK 2010 AND BEYOND

Because of the unique context of the Southern Ocean, and the potential impact of Global Change on its ecosystems, Antarctic marine biodiversity information has to be widely published, immediately accessible, and carefully checked. To answer this need, the SCAR Marine Biodiversity Information Network (SCAR-MarBIN) manages since 2005 a dedicated data portal, www.scarmarbin.be, which provides free and open access to this information. The two main achievements of SCAR-MarBIN are the development of a central Register of Antarctic Marine Species (RAMS: 13,000 taxa) and of a distributed network of databases, which aggregates the information on the web portal (90 datasets; 1,000,000 records). SCAR-MarBIN is designed to act as a long-term repository, safeguarding the legacy of the IPY collaborative efforts, and to spread this knowledge within and beyond the present and future Antarctic communities. Almost entirely funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), SCAR-MarBIN is presently seeking to broaden its support basis. It plans to do so by establishing a consortium of partners willing to provide funding (financial or in-kind), on an equitable basis, to sustain and further the services SCAR-MarBIN presently offers.