Please note that this year’s webinars were only open to those directly involved with OBON (ie SAC members, project teams and working group members).  However, the presentation recordings will be made available on OBON’s YouTube channel shortly.

The third ‘Asia-Pacific’ Session, took place on 13 October, 06:00-07:30 (UK Time), as part of our preparations for the OBON Annual Meeting in Dhaka, Bangladesh (30 Nov to 4 Dec 2026).

The webinar included the following presentations:

• OBON Introduction
• Citizens of the Sea – Erin Bomati, Citizens of the Sea
• ANEMONE Global: Advancing eDNA-based Biodiversity Monitoring – Imane Sioud, Tohoku University (pre-recording)
• OceanOmics: Monitoring & Protecting Ocean Life – Eric Raes, Minderoo Foundation
• BLOWOMICS: Novel Perspectives on Non-invasive Cetacean Research Using microRNA Biomarkers in the Exhaled Breath – Dr Courtney Waugh, University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia

Please note that the recording has been edited to remove the Q&A, SAC reflections, and discussion sections of the webinar

Please note that this year’s webinars were only open to those directly involved with OBON (ie SAC members, project teams and working group members).  However, the presentation recordings will be made available on OBON’s YouTube channel shortly.

The second ‘Americas’ Session, took place on 7 October, 21:00-22:30 (UK Time), as part of our preparations for the OBON Annual Meeting in Dhaka, Bangladesh (30 Nov to 4 Dec 2026).

The webinar included the following presentations:

• OBON Introduction
• Latin American Ocean Biomolecular Observation Network (LACOBON)- Vanessa Yepes, INVEMAR
• Bio-GO-SHIP – Luke Thompson, NOAA
• West Coast OBON – Nastassia Patin, UCSD

Please note that the recording has been edited to remove the Q&A, SAC reflections, and discussion sections of the webinar

Please note that this year’s webinars were only open to those directly involved with OBON (ie SAC members, project teams and working group members).  However, the presentation recordings will be made available on OBON’s YouTube channel shortly.

The webinar included the following presentations:

• OBON Introduction
• HERPOPS – Violaine Dolfo, Institute of Marine Research, Norway
• BIOcean5D – Raffaele Siano, IFREMER
• eDNA expeditions 2026-2028 – Saara Suominen, UNESCO
• DNA-based approaches to fisheries monitoring – Filipe Costa, University of Minho
• Marma Detox – Heli Routti, Norwegian Polar Institute

Please note that the recording has been edited to remove the Q&A, SAC reflections, and discussion sections of the webinar

The series will also help set the scene for discussions at the OBON Annual Meeting, taking place from 30 November to 4 December 2026 in Dhaka, Bangladesh, by giving us an opportunity to hear from projects ahead of the meeting and identify common themes, opportunities and priorities across the community.

All project leads have been emailed directly to share webinar dates and a link to help us finalise the programme.  We request all projects to complete the form by 14 September.

Please note that this year’s webinars will only be open to those directly involved with OBON (ie SAC members, project teams and working group members).  However, the presentation recordings will be made available on OBON’s YouTube channel after the event.

Please contact Luz in the OBON project office if you have any questions.

To help us with planning, we ask OBON project representatives to please complete the registration form as soon as possible: https://forms.gle/YViXwnK3KNSnQ6Fn6. The form will remain open until 30 October 2026.

We expect to share the draft agenda in early October, but in the meantime, we would appreciate receiving your registration and travel support information as early as possible.

Looking ahead

As a new addition this year, the registration form also includes an opportunity to express interest in hosting a future OBON Annual Meeting. To help the community plan further ahead and secure dates earlier in organisational calendars, we are beginning discussions around potential hosts for the 2027 and 2028 Annual Meetings.

If your organisation may be interested in hosting, we encourage you to indicate this in the form. Interested organisations will have the opportunity to present their proposal during the Annual Meeting, after which nominations will be considered through the OBON election process.

We are looking forward to welcoming you to Dhaka and bringing the community together for what promises to be an exciting and productive meeting.

The Ocean Biomolecular Observing Network (OBON) is building a global network of researchers, observing systems, and infrastructure to generate interoperable biomolecular data across the inland-to-ocean continuum. Concurrently, the network is working to expand reference libraries, integrate biomolecular data into ecological models, and build global capacity to ensure equitable access to these technologies.

OBON has a session at ALSO 2027 and invites contributions from both limnological and oceanographic communities. We particularly welcome studies spanning methodological advances, observing system development, reference library creation, time-series and field observations, modelling applications, and the translation of biomolecular data into management and policy outcomes. We particularly encourage research demonstrating how biomolecular observations can address the drivers of environmental change, map freshwater-to-marine connectivity, and create new opportunities for aquatic ecosystem stewardship, conservation, sustainable living marine resources and resilient aquatic futures.

Find out more, and submit your abstract (from 28 July) at: https://www.aslo.org/san-juan-2027/

Keywords: eDNA, Biodiversity, Biomolecular, Technology, Citizen Science

As endorsed projects of the UN Ocean Decade, we have all agreed to make our data reach FAIR standards. But it’s hard, right? Let’s work on it together!

We are excited to offer an online workshop just for OBON members. Drawing on expertise from within the OBON network, the workshop will help you programmatically create outputs of YOUR eDNA data and protocols. These outputs will not only be compatible with standards, but will be uploadable to OBIS and other international platforms when you are ready.

1. Codify the variety of methods used by your project that follow BeBOP standards to make your methods both transparent and machine-readable.
2. Standardize your eDNA data and metadata following FAIR eDNA (FAIRe) guidelines.
3. Know how to publish DNA-derived data using OBIS eDNA Services.

BeBOP

• You will be able to report to the UN Ocean Decade and your funders that you are following international standards to make your eDNA data FAIR.
• Your data will be interoperable which means we can start to combine our data and analyse them together. By analysing our data together we can be greater than the sum of its parts!
• We will attempt to make conversions programmatic when possible, so work now will pay off in future years.

• Members of any OBON project who have eDNA data in hand and are able to do some coding. This first workshop will be especially useful for anyone with metabarcoding data, but targeted (qPCR) projects will also benefit.

• The workshop will have self-paced tutorial videos with example datasets for you to work through on your own time, and then two synchronous online group sessions to work together and answer questions.
• Tutorial materials will be distributed approximately two weeks before each session. It is expected that you work through the materials before the group session, but we are here to help.
• Each online session will be held twice to accommodate different time zones.

• Session 1: FAIRe/BeBOP
  • 21 July 2026 1:00 – 3:00 am UTC
  • 23 Jul 2026 13:00 – 15:00 pm UTC
• Session 2: OBIS and review
  • 4 August 2026 1:00 – 3:00 am UTC
  • 6 August 2026 13:00 – 15:00 pm UTC

Tutorial Videos on YouTube

Links to other workshop materials

• FAIRe demo datasets: https://github.com/FAIR-eDNA/Workshop/tree/main/2026-07%20OBON%20workshop
• FAIRe-NOAA datasets: https://github.com/aomlomics/ODE_testdata/tree/main/noaa-sefsc-gu1901