Who are you, and what is the name of your institute?
Patrizia Giordano, researcher at the Institute of Polar Sciences (ISP) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and principal Investigator of the KAIROS project.
What type of data does your institute produce, how is it produced, and in which regions do you operate?
Since 2010, the research carried out by the ISP has been focused on understanding the ongoing climate changes in the Arctic Ocean. Four marine observing systems has been settled in the Svalbard archipelago in order to identify the impact of warming, sea ice loss, and other anthropogenic pressures on marine ecosystem. These permanent infrastructures continuously collect physical, chemical, and biological data, which are then integrated into long time-series for the detection of climate-induced shift on marine ecosystem and future environmental trends.
How will your project add value to existing data flows?
Biodiversity data concerning the abundance and composition of polar zooplankton species are currently collected in databases that has not yet been published in any repository and are not fully comply with the most recent FAIR principles. The KAIROS project aims to fill this gap by harmonizing and revising 8 years of biodiversity data on marine zooplankton from Kongfjorden (Svalbard) and collected by the “Mooring Dirigibile Italia”, to make them easily accessible and interoperable with other existing information.
What is the expected impact of your proposed project?
Disseminate FAIR and open data will facilitate easy access and utilization of the biodiversity information gathered in a unique and vulnerable environment. Data will be also shared among the scientific community, encouraging collaboration and further research activities for global changes studies and biodiversity assessment in the Arctic Ocean.
How will this involvement or opportunity enhance your institute's capacity?
The Institute of Polar Science, in collaboration with the Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, will improve the existing data management of the long time series of zooplankton data from Kongsfjorden. In particular, a new data flow pipeline will be established, covering all the different steps of the data life cycle. Standardised procedures and tools for data curation, processing, ingestion and preservation, as provided by the leading European e-Science infrastructure for biodiversity and ecosystem research, will be adopted to ensure open and FAIR dissemination of the final data products. Following this approach, the zooplankton biodiversity information shared with this project will represent a benchmark to be replicated in other sites of the Italian Arctic Marine Observing Systems network.