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Integrative data system for monitoring biota and natural habitats in the Israeli Eastern Mediterranean marine environment

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Abstract

An integrative data system for monitoring the biota of the Mediterranean waters of Israel as well as selected records from adjacent Levantine basin regions is presented here, aimed at providing data and research tools for long-term bio-geographic and ecological studies and more important, providing background data for assisting governmental regulators to establish educated habitat-oriented environmental policy. The system relies on the geographic information system (GIS) online map-based platform and contains at present the following components: biotic database of ~ 170,000 recorded sampling events; uniform habitat maps of 63 benthic habitats and 2 pelagic ones, constructed using relevant bathymetric features and biotic community compositions; bathymetric hill-shade map; depth contours; raster depth grid and human interference map. Other informative auxiliary maps are planned to be added (e.g., map of potential pockmark sites, detailed maps of tiny carbonate crust nolls and more). A number of 883 cited documents were listed by us for potential extraction of sampling efforts, most of them are available to us as PDFs  and are available also to the users, excluding copyright-protected ones. Forty-three major projects were depicted in addition to a variety of small studies (e.g., university theses). Thirty-five sampling devices were documented and described, and 3187 species-level identifications were already recorded. In addition, the system provides access to description of sampling devices and pictures of species and seascapes. New data is continuously deposited to the system and the system is flexible, allowing future addition of new types of information. The system site is accessible through the link: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/40e86605ff4d4e5096ed2c901fec2a2f.

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Data availability

The article presents a biotic database which is publicly available through the link:https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/40e86605ff4d4e5096ed2c901fec2a2fexcluding documents which are under copyright protection. Potentially, submitted but still unpublished data will be temporarily publicly unavailable upon the request of the submitting researchers.

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Acknowledgements

The Israeli Ministry of Energy and the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research (IOLR) and especially Mr. Ilan Nissim from the ministry and former IOLR director Prof. Barak Herut are highly appreciated. Mr. Guy Nizry is deeply thanked for the construction of the GIS online-supported site and Mr. Alex Axyonov is appreciated for his assistance in establishing the Windows Server. Dr. Dafna Zeevi-Ben-Yosef, Ms. Sivan Haviv, Ms. Eva Misrahi, and Ms. Nerina Lenart are thanked for data deposition, and Dr. Gil Rilov is appreciated for the detailed map of the coastal rocks. Applause to the huge number of people who participated in the collection of the biotic and cartographic data along the Israeli waters in the last 130 years.

Funding

The initiative to build this system and the finance came from the Israeli ministry of Energy through the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) carried out by its environmental department between 2014 and to date. The Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research (IOLR) partially supported this venture.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marine Biology and Biotechnology, Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research, P.O.B 2336, 3102201, Haifa, Israel

    Moshe Tom & Hadas Lubinevsky

  2. Department of Marine Geology and Geophysics, Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research, P.O.B. 2336, 3102201, Haifa, Israel

    Mor Kanari

Authors
  1. Moshe Tom
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  2. Hadas Lubinevsky
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Contributions

All three participants joined in planning the integrative system site and writing of the manuscript, led by Moshe Tom. Biotic data deposition was done by Moshe Tom and Hadas Lubinevsky. The biotic, habitat, and auxiliary maps were constructed by Moshe Tom (biotic maps) and Mor Kanari (habitat and auxiliary maps).

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Correspondence to Moshe Tom.

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Tom, M., Lubinevsky, H. & Kanari, M. Integrative data system for monitoring biota and natural habitats in the Israeli Eastern Mediterranean marine environment. Environ Monit Assess 195, 1068 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-023-11693-w

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