NTR: Add GOOS Biology and Ecosystems Essential Ocean Variables (BioEco EOVs)

[gwemon]

Proposal received via EC-OBPS to add GOOS Biology and Ecosystems Essential Ocean Variables (BioEco EOVs) to the EXV vocabulary:
Fish abundance and distribution
Sea turtles abundance and distribution
Seabirds abundance and distribution
Marine mammal abundance and distribution
Coral cover and composition
Seagrass cover and composition
Macroalgal canopy cover and composition
Mangrove cover and composition
Microbe biomass and diversity
Benthic invertebrate abundance and distribution

[sformel]

ENVO is also working on this. In the meantime, we discussed a temporary solution in the OBIS Vocab WG:

• Deposit the GOOS Spec Sheets in Zenodo to mint DOI
  • Steve will write Ana Lara Lopez about this to see who could approve this at GOOS
• Once DOIs are minted, we can use them as a PID for minting the remainder of these EOVs in the EXV vocbaulary.
• Once ENVO terms are minted, these EBX terms can be superceded by the ENVO terms.

[sformel]

Ana has approved us putting the Bio-Eco spec sheets in Zenodo. I will check with Pier Luigi to make sure this won't disrupt ENVO or other plans.

[gwemon]

ENVO is also working on this. In the meantime, we discussed a temporary solution in the OBIS Vocab WG:

• Deposit the GOOS Spec Sheets in Zenodo to mint DOI

  • Steve will write Ana Lara Lopez about this to see who could approve this at GOOS

• Once DOIs are minted, we can use them as a PID for minting the remainder of these EOVs in the EXV vocabulary.

• Once ENVO terms are minted, these EBX terms can be superceded by the ENVO terms.

@sformel - note that once ENVO terms are created, the NVS EXV concept will be linked to them with an owl:sameAs relationship in NVS and vice-versa in ENVO - it will be up to the user whether to use the EXV or the ENVO term.

[EliLawrence]

Reviving this request as GOOS is still working to finalize the spec sheets. The spec sheets are not yet submitted in Zenodo, but is it possible to already start creating the BioEco EOV vocabs? Spec sheets should be uploaded by end of May, possibly before with the current version (to be confirmed by Ana and GOOS colleagues). But the community has been asking and waiting for these vocabs for a while now, so it would be great to get them created - the Zenodo DOIs could be added when done?
Thanks!

[gwemon]

Hi @EliLawrence I understand that the spec sheets are not yet finalised but are the BioEco EOV names listed on the GOOS website (https://goosocean.org/what-we-do/framework/essential-ocean-variables/) agreed and finalised? If they are then we can go ahead and extend the EXV collection with the approved terms but if they are not then I would prefer to wait.

[gwemon]

I have found a reference that I can use for the missing Biology and Ecosystems variables: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2026.1737002/full

[EliLawrence]

Ah perfect, thanks Gwen. And sorry for the delayed response, I was waiting to hear a confirmation from Ana about the EOV names. That paper is recent though and the names are accurate so if that works for you then awesome!

[gwemon]

All missing terms added to EXV with names aligned to GOOS' list https://goosocean.org/what-we-do/framework/essential-ocean-variables/

Updates queued for overnight publication on the NVS.

[gwemon]

Missing BioEco concepts now live on the NVS: https://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/EXV/current/