The Marine Biodiversity Data Portal (MBDP–NI), is a five-year DAERA Environment Fund project based at QML and in partnership with the Centre for Environmental Data and Recording (CEDaR).

This project aims to build an innovative web-based portal for exploring NI’s marine biodiversity. The interactive website will incorporate recent as well as archive imagery and data from legacy surveys such as the Northern Ireland Sublittoral Surveys (NISS), the Northern Ireland Littoral Survey (NILS), Agri-food and Biosciences surveys (AFBI) as well as images and video from private collections. Survey sites will be displayed as GIS layers on an EMODnet Bathymetry layer and will link through to site descriptions, photo/video, biotopes and species lists. Species lists will be linked to detailed species pages with descriptions, photos and distribution maps and links to DNA barcodes. The project will also build a reference library of DNA barcodes to facilitate future Environmental DNA monitoring. It will focus on species which could be confused with non-native species, priority species and species for which there is taxonomic uncertainty.

Website coming soon!