First and Rare Observations Tracking Tool:

This page represents an active "work in progress" by WGPME members.  When a new or rare species is reported at a location in a given year and month (e.g., the blue diamond in the figures below), the proximity of other historical observations of that same species are plotted by monhs dn year in a matrix.  

Example Case 1: 

Temporal Proximity Plot for a "new/first noticed" species observed in July 2019, indicated with the blue diamond symbol.  (The species name has been removed until permission is received from submittor.)  While this was the first time it was reported at their monitoring station, historical OBIS observations report it in the general oceanic region.  From the temporal proximity plot above, this species was observed within 2.5 degrees latitude-longitude (~250 km, yellow circles) of the monitoring station back in 2010 and 2002, and within 5 degrees (~500 km, green circle) in August of 2018.  During other time periods, this species was generally not found within 10 degrees (1000 km) of the monitoring station.

Example Case 2:  

Temporal Proximity Plot for a different species, at a different location, first observed at the monitoring station in October 2021.  Using historical OBIS data, it appears this species was frequently present in the area during the 1988-1990 time period,  but less frequent outside of this time period.  This information could then be used to look at historical (1988-1990 vs other) water temperatures and salinities to see if this time period represented an influx of an outside waterbody. LIkewise, if monitoring sample data from 1988-1990 are available, the samples could be re-examined to see if this species was indeed present (but super rare and missed due to aliquoting) in the older samples.