Parallel Publishing to GBIF & OBIS

Photo by Emilie Boulanger, Calanques National Parc in Marseille, 2024

A GBIF North America Webinar

Webinar: Parallel Publishing to GBIF & OBIS

This webinar was presented on 12 March 2026 as the first part of the GBIF North America 2026 Nodes Meeting and Training.

Presenters:

Elizabeth Lawrence, OBIS Training Officer
Steven Formel, OBIS Data Manager
David Bloom, VertNet Project Magician

Topics covered:

How to publish marine-focused datasets to GBIF and OBIS simultaneously
Benefits of publishing to OBIS
Key differences in GBIF and OBIS publishing requirements (including some IPT tips)
Tools to align your taxa with WoRMS

Webinar Video

Slide Decks

Webinar Welcome and GBIF Updates (.pdf)
Parallel Publishing to GBIF & OBIS (.pdf)

Q & A

The questions below were asked in the webinar chat. Some answers below have been modified for accuracy and simplicity. Please watch the video for all of the juicy details.

Question	Answer
If data doesn’t meet quality control in OBIS, do the records get dropped?	Records are dropped when they have missing or zero coordinates or when species are flagged as non-marine in WoRMS. However, users can still access dropped records through the IPT or other publishing endpoints, and see dropped records on the dataset landing page under the Data Quality tab.
Is there a plan to make GBIF/OBIS streamline together?	Yes. OBIS and GBIF have endorsed a joint strategy and action plan for marine biodiversity data. See: OBIS and GBIF endorse joint strategy and action plan for marine biodiversity data
Can you show how to access what was in the table comparing OBIS vs GBIF?	You can find an overview and links explaining the differences in the OBIS manual section on publishing OBIS data to GBIF.
Are there any conflicts with publications containing both terrestrial and marine data in the same dataset?	No. Non-marine taxa will be filtered out during ingestion to OBIS. They will be flagged as NOT_MARINE and appear as dropped records.
What happens when eDNA data that returns results like “unclassified eukaryote”?	Currently these are interpreted as Biota incertae sedis because the AphiaID system does not classify above the kingdom level. The OBIS team is exploring improved solutions.
Can [these processes] be used to identify species while in the field?	No. Sorry.
If I have a dataset published on GBIF, what is the preferred way or best practice to publish it on OBIS as well?	If your dataset is published to GBIF through the IPT, you can select OBIS in the Networks section of the IPT overview page. Additional adjustments may be needed to make the data OBIS-compliant.
Is one advantage of flagging vs dropping a record that contributors can correct their data later?	Absolutely! The OBIS and GBIF both flag data to help contributors improve their data.
How do classifications get updated as more sequences are added to databases?	The taxonomic assignment of sequences is done by the data provider. OBIS will keep that classification up-to-date with WoRMS, but currently OBIS doesn’t re-interpret the sequence. OBIS and GBIF are aware of the need/desire for this type of sequence curation and are working together to find solutions that keep the information up-to-date but keep the decision-making in the hands of the scientists providing the data.
If you find an error in your metadata or need to add information (e.g., depth), how do you update it?	Metadata can be updated at any time through the IPT. If the data itself changes, you can upload the updated file and republish the dataset, which creates a new version.
If collections are published to GBIF using an RSS feed rather than IPT, are they automatically ingested by OBIS?	No, this is information that needs to be kept up to date by emailing the OBIS helpdesk (helpdesk@obis.org). This is equivalent to editing the GBIF registry for similar publishing endpoints.
Is there a plan to one day include prokaryotes?	That day is today 😀. As long as you can assign your prokaryote to a kingdom it can be shared as such in OBIS. WoRMS doesn’t have a domain level of classification, but they are aware of the challenges this can create with DNA data.
If I am a publisher on GBIF but don’t have an IPT, do I need to become a publisher on OBIS?	Only GBIF has ‘publishers’. That is metadata on top of the EML provided by the Darwin Core Archive. OBIS parses the EML from the Darwin Core Archive to coordinate the organizations that are related to a dataset. However, OBIS can also leverage OceanExpert to build organizational dashboards that are similar to the publisher dashboards created by GBIF. For example, US MBON
Is the determination of ‘marine’ made by taxonomy, coordinates, or both?	It’s strictly an interpretation of the existence of the taxa as marine in the WoRMS database.

OBIS Data Resources

Please review the Parallel Publishing to GBIF & OBIS slide deck for more links, information and tools.