• People

  - individuals working directly with OBIS-SEAMAP, including the Principle Investigators (PIs), research and technical staff

• Funders

  - financial donors

• Sponsors

  - organizations facilitating the project by either handling the administrative aspects of funding, providing additional visibility through advertisement, and/or assisting with liasons to data providers or collaborators

• Partners

  - organizations included in the original proposal working closely with the OBIS-SEAMAP group to provide data or implement technologies

• Contributors

  - organizations and individuals who are contributing their data to the OBIS-SEAMAP project

People

• Principle Investigators
  • P.I. Dr. Andy Read is an expert on the ecology and conservation biology of marine mammals, with an emphasis on the development and application of new conservation tools to resolve conflicts between marine mammals and human activities. Dr. Read has considerable experience with the study of marine mammal movements and distribution patterns, and is well-versed with the tools used to describe, analyze and interpret marine mammal populations, including photo-identification, acoustic techniques, telemetry, and survey methods. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission and Cetacean Specialist Group of the IUCN, which will facilitate the inclusion of valuable records of past commercial whaling activities and the exchange of information with foreign researchers. Dr. Read has been involved in broad, ecosystem-level research, including studies of the impacts of longline fisheries bycatch on marine turtles, cetaceans, and large predatory fishes in the Northwestern Atlantic.
  • Co-P.I. Dr. Pat Halpin has more than 10 years experience developing and analyzing spatial data for a wide variety of environmental science applications. Halpin holds appoints in both the Environmental Science and Policy and the Coastal Systems Science and Policy Divisions at the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences. Halpin is also a member of the Center for Geometric and Biological Computing at Duke; a collaborative organization of computer scientists, statisticians, and ecologists focused on the development of algorithms and information system applications. Halpin teaches geographic information systems, satellite remote sensing, conservation applications of GIS and marine applications of GIS. Halpin has been recently involved in the development of a marine GIS data model for ESRI and the marine GIS community in general. Halpin currently works with a wide range of marine GIS analyses including the development of transient environmental envelope models of marine mammal habitat, benthic habitat mapping and network models of coral reef connectivity.
  • Co-P.I. Dr. Larry Crowder research centers on the integrated management of marine ecosystems, with an emphasis on the conservation biology of marine turtles. Dr. Crowder's experience with sea turtle ecology and marine conservation will prove invaluable to the proposed project. In particular, Dr. Crowder's proven ability to integrate disparate data sets and multi-P.I. projects into a coherent inter-disciplinary perspective will help achieve the ambitious goals set in this project. Previously, Dr. Crowder co-directed the South Atlantic Bight Recruitment Experiment (SABRE) and a Global Study of the Ecological Impacts of Longline Fisheries funded by Pew. This experience managing large integrative projects, combined with the highly-qualified personnel in Dr. Crowder's lab will help make this project possible. In particular, Dr. Crowder will contribute proven skills managing large research projects, invaluable computer programming and data set management capabilities, and demonstrated knowledge of the ecology and natural history of marine turtles.
• Research Staff
  
  • Lucie Hazen is managing the project and overseeing scientific content.
• Technical Staff
  • Ben Best is working full-time on the OBIS-SEAMAP technical glue creating the desired ecologically and spatially significant products using web, database and geographical information systems (GIS) technologies.
  • Ei Fujioka also works full-time on the technical aspects developing the structure and functionality behind the web interface, creating new tools and services and managing datasets.
    

Funders

• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
• Office of Naval Research (ONR)
  

Sponsors

• National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP)
• Office of Naval Research (ONR)

Partners

• Individuals
  • Karen Stocks (U.C San Diego) - interface with OBIS infrastructure project; integrate project with SeamountsOnline project
  • D. Boersma (U. of Washington) - steering committee member
  • Sonia Batten (Sir Alistair Hardy) - steering committee member
  • Paul Dayton (Scripps) - steering committee member
  • John Croxall (British Antarctic Survey) - steering committee member
    
• Institutions
  • Allied Whale (College of the Atlantic) - compile pertinent marine mammal abundance and photo-identification data sets and supporting survey meta-data; help to design criteria for data summary and display, and standardized photo-id products.
  • Cascadia Research - compile pertinent marine mammal abundance and photo-identification data sets; help to design criteria for data summary and display, and standardized photo-id products.
  • Clymene Enterprises - assemble profiles for marine mammal species.
  • ESRI - provide software and technical support
  • NEFSC / SEFSC NMFS Laboratories - compile pertinent marine mammal, bird, and turtle abundance data sets and supporting survey meta-data;
  • Sea Mammal Research Unit (St Andrews University) - compile pertinent marine mammal abundance data sets and supporting survey meta-data; (2) Clean / check data sets for inclusion into a publicly-available, web-based system
  • System Science Applications - provide software and technical Support
    

Contributors

• Texas A&M University at Galveston (TAMUG)
• Duke University Marine Laboratory
• University of North Carolina - Wilmington