PEN03: Tracking Marine Biodiversity: An Interactive Genomics Explorer for Europe

Join us in building a tool to safeguard marine life! This challenge requires a multidisciplinary team to create an interactive web-based tool that allows anyone - from citizens to policymakers - to explore marine biodiversity across Europe, using data from the EMO BON initiative, EMODnet, and Global Fishing Watch. The tool will allow users to visualize species geolocation, changes in taxonomic diversity and community structure through time and space. Users will be able to identify biodiversity hotspots, track species presence and, analyze correlations with environmental conditions and human activities.

As marine ecosystems face increasing threats from biodiversity loss, climate change, and overexploitation, your work can contribute to urgently needed solutions. This is your chance to use data science, genomics, and visualization to tell the story of Europe’s changing oceans—station by station, species by species. Together, we’ll create a prototype that filters by species, time, or region, compares diversity trends, and supports frameworks like MSFD, EOVs, and EBVs. If you’re passionate about marine conservation and open science, this challenge is for you. Let’s make marine data speak—for science, policy, and the future of our seas.

 

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We aim to prototype an interactive online platform (web dashboard) that:
- Geolocates marine species observed through EMO BON
- Enables temporal and spatial filtering of biodiversity indices
- Displays human activity overlays from Global Fishing Watch
- Incorporates environmental context layers from EMODnet (e.g., temperature, salinity)
- Visualizes trends and indicators relevant to EOVs, EBVs, and the MSFD

The output will be a working front-end prototype with map-based visualization, species search, and temporal comparison tools, supported by scripts for integrating genomic, environmental, and fishing data.



- To respond to a major social or environmental problem
- To turn an idea into a concrete project
- Contributing to innovation in the maritime sector
- To explore an innovative idea using marine data
- To test the feasibility of a project or idea

Web developer (frontend or backend), Data analyst, Marine biologist, Genomic data specialist, Oceanographer, Biotechnologist