Set Up

It combines three web services in a fixed order: 1. Taxon match, 2. Number of observations of a marine taxon, and 3. Exclusive Economic Zones.

1. The web service 'Taxon match' matches the marine species names to the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). If a species name is available in WoRMS, this web service renders its AphiaID (an unique identifier of Aphia, the database behind WoRMS), its status (accepted or unaccepted) and its accepted name. This output information is added to the original input file as extra columns. 

[NOTE: the taxon match can also match taxon names to other taxonomic databases and nomenclatures, such as e.g. Catalogue of Life (CoL), the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS), etc. For this use case we only select WoRMS, since the uploaded list contains purely marine species.]

2. The web service 'Number of observations of a marine taxon' determines the observation records for the species in the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS). For this, the web service uses the AphiaID, the output of the taxon match. Every OBIS observation record is characterized by a cs_code, which is translated into coordinates. The cs_code, latitude and longitude are added as extra columns to the original file.

3. The web service 'Exclusive Economic Zones' determines in which EEZs these coordinates are located. The name and MRGID (Marine Regions Geographic Identifier) of the EEZs are added to the input file as extra columns. 

[NOTE: if you are not interested in EEZs, you can also choose other geographical areas, such as IHO Sea Areas, Longhurst Biogeographical Provinces, etc.]