5.1 Western Australia Marine Bioresources Library (WAMBL)

Description

This project established a table linked to the Western Australian Museum marine invertebrates collections database. Consequently data is backed up every 24 hours. The table fields were modelled on the Australian Institute of Marine Science Bioresources Library database and include the amount of frozen material and how and where it is stored, as well as tracking material that has been sent for research.

A library of sponge specimens has been established in the WA Museum with 157 frozen Commonwealth collected samples and 50 State collected samples incorporated into WAMBL. Also, 466 frozen samples with extracts, collected from Western Australian waters are virtually incorporated into WAMBL.

Aims

• Establish a marine bioresources library to facilitate sustainable access to characterised Western Australian marine biodiversity for biodiscovery.
• Establish standard operating procedures to access samples in the library in compliance with all access and benefit sharing provisions required by WA State government agencies, and WA Museum data capture requirements.
• Maximise the capture of knowledge regarding Western Australian marine biodiversity that is made available for biodiscovery, and consolidate it at the Western Australian Museum in a format that is accessible to the State’s natural resource managers.
• Identify ways that the Western Australia Marine Bioresources Library could be maintained and expanded after the completion of WAMSI.

Reports

Evans-Illidge, E. A., Logan, M., Doyle, J., Fromont, J., Battershill, C. N., Ericson, G., Wolff, C. W., Muirhead, A., Kearns, P., Abdo, D., Kininmonth, S., & Llewellyn, L. (2013). Phylogeny drives large scale patterns in Australian marine bioactivity and provides a new chemical ecology rationale for future biodiscovery. PloS one, 8(9), e73800. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0073800