The Ira Moana Project: A Genetic Observatory for Aotearoa’s Marine Biodiversity

Abstract

The genetic diversity of populations plays a crucial role in ensuring species and ecosystem resilience to threats such as climate change and habitat degradation. Despite this recognized importance of genetic diversity, and its relevance to the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, it remains difficult to observe and synthesize genetic data at a national scale. The “Ira Moana—Genes of the Sea—Project” (https://sites.massey.ac.nz/iramoana/) has worked to improve stewardship of genetic data for Aotearoa New Zealand’s (NZ) marine organisms to facilitate marine genetic biodiversity observation, research, and conservation. The Ira Moana Project has established interoperable data infrastructures and tools that help researchers follow international best-practice (including the FAIR Principles for Data Stewardship and CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance) and contribute to a national genetic data resource. Where possible, the Project has employed existing infrastructures (such as the Genomic Observatories Metadatabase, GEOME) to allow interoperability with similar research activities, but has also innovated to accommodate the national interests of NZ. The Ira Moana Project has an inclusive model, and through presentations, workshops, and datathons, it has provided training, education, and opportunities for collaboration among NZ researchers. Here, we outline the motivations for the Ira Moana Project, describe the Project activities and outcomes, and plans for future development. As a timely response to national and international pressures on genetic biodiversity research, it is hoped that the Ira Moana Project will facilitate NZ researchers, communities, and conservation practitioners to navigate this crucial period, and provide tangible solutions nationally and globally.

Who are you? A framework to identify and report genetic sample mix‐ups

“…Interestingly, the scientific community has recently become more aware of the benefits of standardised processes across research groups, universities and countries. Biological meta‐databases like GEOME (Riginos et al, 2020) and Ira Moana (https://sites.massey.ac.nz/iramoana/; Liggins et al, 2021) collect commonly employed research methodology, promote data reusability and study reproducibility while providing templates and recommendations for study design and execution. What is more, there are open‐source platforms such as Galaxy (https://usegalaxy.org/), which aim to provide tools for researchers who are working with genomic data.…”

Global genetic diversity status and trends: towards a suite of Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) for genetic composition

“…Other research initiatives have established field, laboratory, sequencing and analysis SOPs appropriate for their taxonomic group, and/or genetic methodology [e.g. Oz Mammals Genomic Initiative (Eldridge et al ., 2020); Ira Moana Project (Liggins, Noble & the Ira Moana Network, 2021b)]. The Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON) is working to develop best practices for ‘omics’ information (Goodwin et al ., 2019), including the Global Omics Observatory Network (GLOMICON – https://sites.google.com/view/glomicon/home).…”

Living in relationship with the Ocean to transform governance in the UN Ocean Decade

“…Data collection processes can also build in frameworks that support Indigenous Data Sovereignty [ 133 ]. The Ira Moana Project based in Aotearoa/New Zealand has incorporated principles of Indigenous Data Sovereignty to retain Indigenous provenance information of marine genetic samples in metadata of large marine databases to protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples [ 134 , 135 ]. These policies have broad applicability for ethical applications in future environmental DNA sampling in marine environments.…”