Share water sample metadata: an example from Sardinia LTER-Italy marine and freshwater sites

A collection of phytoplankton fixed water samples has been maintained at the Department of Architecture, Design and Planning (DADU) of the University of Sassari, which is part of LifeWatch Italy (LW-ITA). The DADU collection includes samples from different aquatic ecosystems in Sardinia (freshwater, transitional and coastal marine), comprising research stations of sites “14 Sardinian marine ecosystems” and “10 Lake Ecosystems of Sardinia” of LTER-Italy (Long Term Ecological Research). The samples have been collected within different research projects since late 70s. Scientific information available for each sample includes the list of phytoplankton species, their abundances and biovolume. This information has been reported on “raw counting tables”. Furthermore, since the samples have been collected for ecological studies, each sample has been accompanied by data of sets of environmental variables, including measures obtained directly in the field and in the laboratory, reported on “sampling sheets” and “laboratory tables”, partially already organized in electronic format. A project funded by the Fondazione di Sardegna has allowed starting in cataloguing the phytoplankton samples, collecting and digitization of documents associated with them as well, with the general objective to valorise the ecological information present and linked to the samples. Nowadays, the use of innovative techniques (e.g. molecular techniques) can allow obtain more information on biodiversity also from old samples. Consequently, the DADU collection represents a potential source of biodiversity information. A process of sharing, by the use of CSIRO physical samples metadata model according with International Geo Sample Number (IGSN), gathered in the project has been started.