Background

Biological diversity, or biodiversity, is defined as the variety of life, encompassing variation at all levels of complexity – genetic, species, ecosystems, and biomes – and including functional diversity and diversity across ecosystems. A growing body of research demonstrates that: 1) the maintenance of coastal and marine biodiversity is critical to sustained ecosystem and human health and resilience in a globally changing environment, and 2) the condition of marine biodiversity offers a proxy for the status of ocean and coastal ecosystem health and ability to provide ecosystem services. Thus, managing our marine resources in a way that conserves existing marine biodiversity would help address other ocean management objectives (Palumbi et al. 2009).

MBON is interested in all levels of diversity, as depicted in this diagram. The lower level includes habitat types within a region; the middle level includes species diversity; and the upper level includes genetic diversity within species (Credit: Palumbi et al.).

Biodiversity understanding is critical from the perspective of ecosystem services such as food, oxygen, socio-economic benefits that support livelihoods, and a stable climate. This was recognized at the highest political level in the U.S. Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force’s final recommendations to the president in July 2010, and has become “the policy of the United States to protect, maintain, and restore the health and biological diversity of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes ecosystems and resources.” The Census of Marine Life, which concluded in 2010, greatly enhanced our understanding of the status of marine biodiversity. It also made clear the importance of clear-cut, systematic and sustainable approaches to observing and monitoring biodiversity across different levels and at a national scale.

NOAA Interest in Biodiversity

NOAA’s mission is one of Science, Service, and Stewardship. The agency is working to:

• understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts,
• share that knowledge and information with others, and
• conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources.

Fulfilling this mission requires sound “environmental intelligence” – from the surface of the sun to the depths of the ocean, keeping our finger on the pulse of our changing planet. NOAA does this through a series of networks – of observations, models, forecasts, and assessments such as integrated ecosystem assessments and stock assessments – putting environmental information into the hands of the public, decision makers, and anyone who needs it. Biodiversity matters to NOAA because it informs all of our efforts towards environmental intelligence.

There is significant interest and much expertise across NOAA in marine and coastal biodiversity:

• NOAA co-chairs the Biodiversity Working Group under the Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Technology. The interagency working group has over 60 members, including representatives from NOAA, BOEM, Marine Mammal Commission, Navy and ONR, NSF, Smithsonian, USFWS, and USGS among others. It meets regularly to share information about biological research and monitoring that could contribute to federal agency information needs for environment and habitat protection, regulatory work, fisheries management, and so on, but also to discover opportunities for collaborative research with other agencies, improve biological data management and accessibility, coordinate on deep-sea ecosystem issues, and integrating satellite data products with in situ observations in marine and coastal environments.
• NOAA co-sponsored – with six other federal agencies – a workshop of experts in May 2010 to develop a plan and recommendations for attaining an operational marine biodiversity observation network (MBON) for the nation. The workshop was hosted by the Biodiversity Ad Hoc Group under the Interagency Working Group on Ocean Partnerships. The full workshop report is available on the NOPP website or as a .pdf. 
• For access to the MBON Data Portal please visit: http://mbon.ioos.us/
• In May 2013, BON workshop steering committee members published a paper in BioScience on the feasibility of establishing a MBON. 
• In Fall 2014, NOAA, NASA, and BOEM – on behalf of the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP) – launched three projects that are demonstrating how an MBON could be developed. U.S. IOOS, NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries are partnering with NASA, BOEM and others on this effort.  Partners have created an MBON website to share project background and updates. 

Global Relevance

• MBON has quickly established traction in the international community. In Spring 2016, it was approved as a Group on Earth Observation Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) thematic node and is considered by GEO BON as its key “pillar” for the marine realm. MBON connects GEO BON with GEO’s Blue Planet, GOOS’s Biodiversity and Ecosystems Panel, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and other marine and biodiversity efforts.
• MBON team members and international partners have been participating in discussions to establish a global MBON, including the “MBON Pole to Pole” initiative announced at the Fall 2015 Group on Earth Observations Plenary meeting in Mexico City.
• In Spring 2016, the GEO Biodiversity Observation Network identified global MBON as a GEO BON Thematic Network.  

Developing MBON: Demonstration Projects and Partnerships

Our fragile coastal and marine ecosystems face increasing threats from human activities, climate change and other factors. To mitigate and adapt to such threats, we need a fuller, more integrated, picture of how the biodiversity within these ecosystems may be changing, especially since marine biodiversity is a key indicator of ocean health and critical to sustaining natural resources such as fisheries.

To begin building this picture, the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System is partnering with the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to initiate the first U.S. network to monitor marine biodiversity at scales ranging from microbes to whales. Three pilot networks will provide a prototype of how a national marine biodiversity observation network could be developed. Such a network would serve as a marine resource management tool to conserve existing biodiversity and enhance U.S. biosecurity against threats such as invasive species and infectious agents.

Selected from 19 proposals, the three demonstration projects are working in at least four locations: the Florida Keys NOAA National Marine Sanctuary, the Monterey Bay NOAA National Marine Sanctuary; Santa Barbara and the NOAA Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary ; and on the continental shelf in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea. The projects are working in diverse marine environments to integrate existing observations ranging from satellite observations to DNA sampling. In addition, new observations will fill current data gaps.

The projects will integrate data on large-scale sea-surface conditions with observations made in the ocean and the laboratory. They will build partnerships with existing long-term biodiversity monitoring efforts, explore innovative uses of new in situ observations and genomic techniques, and improve access to integrated biodiversity data.

Current U.S. MBON Collaborations

The Florida Keys and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuaries, both encompassing deep sea, continental shelves, estuaries, coral reefs and other marine environments, will be the focus of one the Sanctuaries MBON project, led by Dr. Frank Muller-Karger, of the University of South Florida.

Dr. Robert Miller, of the University of California, Santa Barbara, leads the Santa Barbara Channel MBON, including in the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. The sanctuary is home to an extremely rich array of marine species and is considered an ecologically significant place with tremendous biodiversity.

Dr. Katrin Iken, of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, is leading the Arctic MBON, or AMBON, project in the Chukchi Sea.  AMBON will build on recent efforts to extend much-needed long-term monitoring data and fill gaps in coverage. The Arctic is experiencing the most dramatic temperature increases taking place in the ocean, leading to significant changes in marine ecosystem structure and function. 

Smithsonian has also joined the MBON partnership through its Marine Global Earth Observatory (MarineGEO), directed by the Smithsonian’s Tennenbaum Marine Observatories Network (TMON). The project field sites include: the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center on the Chesapeake Bay; the Smithsonian’s Indian River Lagoon, Fort Pierce, FL; Carrie Bow Cay in Belize; the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama located at Bocas Del Toro on the Caribbean and the Naos station on the Pacific Ocean.   MarineGEO Hawaiʻi on Kaneʻohe Bay Oahu was established by the Smithsonian Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

Resources

• Stephen R Palumbi, Paul A Sandifer, J David Allan, Michael W Beck, Daphne G Fautin, Michael J Fogarty, Benjamin S Halpern, Lewis S Incze, Jo-Ann Leong, Elliott Norse, John J Stachowicz, and Diana H Wall 2009. Managing for ocean biodiversity to sustain marine ecosystem services. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7: 204–211.  Palumbi paper .pdf. 
• Biological Ocean Observing: Exploring Components of the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®) from the Perspective of the Census of Marine Life.  CoML Report .pdf
• John J Stachowicz, John F Bruno, and J. Emmett Duffy 2007. Understanding the Effects of Marine Biodiversity on Communities and Ecosystems. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 38:739-766. Stachowicz et al .pdf
• Boris Worm et al. 2006. Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services. Science 314: 787-790. Worm et al .pdf
• 2006 CoML Workshop. Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management: Approaches for Researching the Roles of Marine and Coastal Biodiversity in Maintaining Ecosystem Services. 2006 CoML Workshop Report .pdf