Ocean Sampling Day 2014: a World Story of Success

With 185 marine stations from 38 countries and 5 continents signed up for Ocean Sampling Day 2014, OSD has become the first globally organized scientific attempt to generate a snapshot of the microbial diversity and function in our oceans. The OSD-Team likes to Thank All Sampling Teams for their motivation, collaboration and efforts undertaken to render OSD such a success.

OSD has been recognized by press and media all over the globe with around 50 press articles and several TV stations broadcasting interviews and footage about OSD. Please check our Facebook  and Twitter pages for pictures and links.

OSD-Team in Monaco

The OSD Team kick-started OSD in Monaco where Prof. Dr. Frank Oliver Glöckner, as the coordinator of Micro B3/OSD, and Prof. Dr. Frédéric Briand, Director General of the Mediterranean Science Commission (CIESM) signed the CIESM Charter on Access and Benefit Sharing. This Charter aims at maintaining and protecting the access to scientific knowledge to everyone while preventing abuses of the ocean global commons. The signature of the CIESM Charter in the context of the Ocean Sampling Day was a perfect opportunity for scientists to support the exploration of marine ecosystems by promoting the sustainable use of Marine Genetic Resources without penalizing potential biotechnological and economic developments. So far scientists from 33 countries and 5 continents have endorsed the charter.

MyOSD Citizen Science

On the Ocean Sampling Day everyone could be a scientist for by joining MyOSD and contributing to science by collecting important environmental parameters like latitude, longitude, temperature, weather condition, wind speed and, with a little investment, also further data. For this purpose the OSD App for smartphones (Android and iOS) had been developed. All together so far 76 contributions from all around the world had been recorded adding value to OSD by sending environmental parameters as well as pictures.