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The Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) is the world's most comprehensive online, open-access database of marine species distributions. OBIS grows with millions of new species observations every year. Contributions come from a network of hundreds of institutions, projects and individuals with common goals: to build a scientific knowledge base that is open to the public for scientific discovery and exploration and to detect trends and changes that inform society as essential elements in conservation management and sustainable development. Until now, OBIS has focused solely on the collection of biogeographic data (the presence of marine species in space and time) and operated with optimized data flows, quality control procedures and data standards specifically targeted to these data. Based on requirements from the growing OBIS community to manage datasets that combine biological, physical and chemical measurements, the OBIS-ENV-DATA pilot project was launched to develop a proposed standard and guidelines to make sure these combined datasets can stay together and are not, as is often the case, split and sent to different repositories. The proposal in this paper allows for the management of sampling methodology, animal tracking and telemetry data, biological measurements (e.g., body length, percent live cover, ...) as well as environmental measurements such as nutrient concentrations, sediment characteristics or other abiotic parameters measured during sampling to characterize the environment from which biogeographic data was collected. The recommended practice builds on the Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) standard and on practices adopted by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). It consists of a DwC Event Core in combination with a DwC Occurrence Extension and a proposed enhancement to the DwC MeasurementOrFact Extension. This new structure enables the linkage of measurements or facts - quantitative and qualitative properties - to both sampling events and species occurrences, and includes additional fields for property standardization. We also embrace the use of the new parentEventID DwC term, which enables the creation of a sampling event hierarchy. We believe that the adoption of this recommended practice as a new data standard for managing and sharing biological and associated environmental datasets by IODE and the wider international scientific community would be key to improving the effectiveness of the knowledge base, and will enhance integration and management of critical data needed to understand ecological and biological processes in the ocean, and on land. Fil: De Pooter, Daphnis. Flanders Marine Institute; Bélgica Fil: Appeltans, Ward. UNESCO-IOC; Bélgica Fil: Bailly, Nicolas. Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, MedOBIS; Grecia Fil: Bristol, Sky. United States Geological Survey; Estados Unidos Fil: Deneudt, Klaas. Flanders Marine Institute; Bélgica Fil: Eliezer, Menashè. Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale; Italia Fil: Fujioka, Ei. University Of Duke. Nicholas School Of Environment. Duke Marine Lab; Estados Unidos Fil: Giorgetti, Alessandra. Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale; Italia Fil: Goldstein, Philip. University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, OBIS; Estados Unidos Fil: Lewis, Mirtha Noemi. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Centro Nacional Patagónico. Centro para el Estudio de Sistemas Marinos; Argentina Fil: Lipizer, Marina. Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale; Italia Fil: Mackay, Kevin. National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research; Nueva Zelanda Fil: Marin, Maria Rosa. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Centro Nacional Patagónico; Argentina Fil: Moncoiffé, Gwenaëlle. British Oceanographic Data Center; Reino Unido Fil: Nikolopoulou, Stamatina. Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, MedOBIS; Grecia Fil: Provoost, Pieter. UNESCO-IOC; Bélgica Fil: Rauch, Shannon. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Estados Unidos Fil: Roubicek, Andres. CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere; Australia Fil: Torres, Carlos. Universidad Autonoma de Baja California Sur; México Fil: van de Putte, Anton. Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences; Bélgica Fil: Vandepitte, Leen. Flanders Marine Institute; Bélgica Fil: Vanhoorne, Bart. Flanders Marine Institute; Bélgica Fil: Vinci, Mateo. Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale; Italia Fil: Wambiji, Nina. Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute; Kenia Fil: Watts, David. CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere; Australia Fil: Klein Salas, Eduardo. Universidad Simon Bolivar; Venezuela Fil: Hernandez, Francisco. Flanders Marine Institute; Bélgica

Abstract Background Environmental degradation is a major threat facing ecosystems around the world. In order to determine ecosystems in need of conservation interventions, we must monitor the biodiversity of these ecosystems effectively. Bioacoustic approaches offer a means to monitor ecosystems of interest in a sustainable manner. In this work we show how a bioacoustic record from the Dedan Kimathi University wildlife conservancy, a conservancy in the Mount Kenya ecosystem, was obtained in a cost effective manner. A subset of the dataset was annotated with the identities of bird species present since they serve as useful indicator species. These data reveal the spatial distribution of species within the conservancy and also point to the effects of major highways on bird populations. This dataset will provide data to train automatic species recognition systems for birds found within the Mount Kenya ecosystem. Such systems are necessary if bioacoustic approaches are to be employed at the large scales necessary to influence wildlife conservation measures. New information We provide acoustic recordings from the Dedan Kimathi University wildlife conservancy, a conservancy in the Mount Kenya ecosystem, obtained using a low cost acoustic recorder. A total of 2701 minute long recordings are provided including both daytime and nighttime recordings. We present an annotation of a subset of the daytime recordings indicating the bird species present in the recordings. The dataset contains recordings of at least 36 bird species. In addition, the presence of a few nocturnal species within the conservancy is also confirmed.