Environmental DNA (eDNA) is an increasingly important tool for biodiversity monitoring and decision-making. With the integration of eDNA approaches into routine environmental sampling programs, sequence-based biodiversity datasets are rapidly increasing across research and environmental monitoring applications. Therefore, it is important to establish standardised approaches to publishing FAIR, interoperable, and reusable marine datasets.
CSIRO’s Information and Data Centre (IDC), part of the Marine National Facility (MNF) and Engineering and Technology (E&T) programs, hosts the Australian node of the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS-AU) and is developing pipelines to support interoperable marine eDNA data management and publication. To identify current challenges and gaps in marine eDNA data publication, a consultation of key stakeholders is being undertaken across relevant research and data communities. OBIS-AU is collaborating with the OBIS Secretariat, GBIF, the Australian National Fish Collection (ANFC), Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), Australian Microbiome (AM), the IMOS eDNA Facility, Minderoo Foundation, GLOMBO, and other partners to develop pipelines that transform eDNA observations into standardised biodiversity records suitable for publication into global biodiversity repositories and digital marine commons infrastructure.
These approaches aim to enable researchers to routinely generate, manage and publish reusable marine eDNA datasets, while improving interoperability and discoverability of marine biodiversity data.