Working group III: Infrastructure Needs

1
Working group III Infrastructure Needs
Zooplankton collections Taxonomic Training CMarZ
Network Website, Database Species pages
2
1. Zooplankton collections

• Whose collections should be on CMarZ?
• All available collections of zooplankton
  (institutions, universities, projects, museums)
  is outside the ability of CMarZ but we will
  advertise Nishidas project on our website for
  researchers to send them their data.
• We will serve CMarZ related datasets. Please
  contact Nancy or DMO.
• General/ Metadata Collection title, number of
  samples, general description, gear, areas,
  availability of samples for outside potential
  users, etc.
• SSG members who will request plankton datasets
  from various areasAnn or each SG mbr. will
  write to Network members to offer to serve data
  sets on cmarz.
• Mark Ohman has already made a form (located in
  the science plan) for collection of information.
  This can be used for requests.
• -Chris Reid and Sigi Europe
• -Ruben S. America, Chile, Argentina, Brazil
  (Ruben Lopez, Boltovskoy) INIDEP collections
  Marina Sabatini.
• -Janet- start electronic database of unsorted
  samples. Can contact people and get general
  information about their collections
• Others- ?

3
2. Taxonomic training

• (1) Diverse expertise among trainees.
• (2) Output from the training to CMarZ sample
  analysis is unclear. Getting many people trained
  in important task for CMarZ as called for by
  CoML.
• In SE countries little chance to utilize the
  expertise after graduation.
• Jobs are needed to make their investments
  worthwhile.
• Cross-training molecular techniques plus
  taxonomy combined skills are being found to be
  useful. Some (a small amount) funds are
  available for cross-fertilization for students,
  scientists, etc. Also, DNA is popular so that
  may be the draw, a recruitment tool.
• A Legacy item is after care of trainees jobs.

4

• (4) Co-operation of CMarZ with these training
  activities
• CMarZ can offer some funds for travel by teachers
  but not for students or facilities.
• Collaboration CMarZ members as lecturers,
  announcement through CMarZ website, ask Network
  members if they might offer teaching expertise
  for training. Have this information on web.
• To get further funding, international sources can
  be approached with the help of the 3 PIs (Ann,
  Sigi, Shuhei). Tip - in proposals, highlight
  that there arent enough taxonomists to do the
  work.
• Janet is willing to teach at taxonomic workshop.
  Who else on SG is willing?
• SAFHOS is willing to have another training.
  Maybe one at WHOI?? SG should propose to run more
  workshops.
• Chris Reid is willing to give advise on how to
  put on workshops, having run several successful
  ones.
• It takes 2 years to plan and run a workshop so
  start thinking about this NOW. A plan through
  2010 is needed now.

5
3. CMarZ Network

• Accomplishments web site established
• Challenges very few responded. Slow growth.
• Action needed
• 1. Direct contact by SG members to invite people
  to join Network. Please get at least 10 members
  by end of Dec.
• 2. Add note on Network page
• Some advice some of these experts are willing to
  check a small number of specimens for your
  identifications. They are all very busy and will
  not be able to identify large amounts of samples.
  They will need evidence that you have attempted
  to identify the animal yourself, eg. drawings and
  text describing your findings.

6
4. CMarZ Database and Species Pages - the web

• Accomplishments database submission on species
  distribution at individual base in progress.
• Challenges slow growth.
• Perhaps people involved in workshops could as an
  exercise, create SPs with supervision of teacher
  mainly endemic species.
• Action needed
• (1) Direct contact with respective scientists by
  SG members
• (2) Submission of good quality images by SG
  members and collaborators.
• Add image credit info to database author and
  year so it can be put into a caption. Right now,
  this information is part of filename and must be
  viewed in non-intuitive ways.
• All SAFHOS images are freely available mostly
  specimen photos. Plankton image library

7

• (3) As for Species Pages
• Listing all species names at first? This can be
  done but was not decided at this point.
• Link to other established web-sites so people do
  not have to duplicate their previous efforts.