A Leap forward for Salmon Research
By Graeme Diack
I’m excited to share an important milestone for the international salmon research community. Inspired by one of the recommendations in our International Year of the Salmon synthesis paper “Salmon Data Mobilization”1, I, along with my peers from the global salmon data community, have successfully launched a dedicated Interest Group within the Research Data Alliance (RDA). This new platform, the “Salmon Research and Monitoring Interest Group”, chaired by Tom Bird (DFO), Lara Erikson (PSMFC), Alexis Knight (DFO), and myself, represents a significant leap toward solving long-standing challenges in salmon research and monitoring data integration.
Salmon research, both in the Atlantic and Pacific, is abundant, and as such there exists a wealth of hard won data across many stakeholders. However, despite the strong desire for collaboration within the field, various technical and socio-political barriers make it difficult to share, integrate, and publicise data in ways that enable the community to fully harness this information. As a result, critical insights into salmon populations, migratory patterns, and conservation strategies are out of reach, especially on the larger, global scale.
The Research Data Alliance provides a vibrant and structured social network designed to tackle exactly these kinds of issues. With its broad reach, the RDA brings together a diverse range of researchers, providing a unique opportunity for cross-border collaboration. Within the RDA, Interest Groups act as organic hubs for knowledge sharing, facilitating the alignment of common goals. With our new Interest Group now officially endorsed by the RDA secretariat, we can begin to work more efficiently towards FAIR2 monitoring and research data for salmon.
The first and most immediate task for our group is to expand our membership. We need those involved in salmon monitoring and research to join this initiative, from field biologists to data managers. If this fits within your professional scope, I strongly encourage you to sign up with the RDA and join our new Interest Group.
From now, my co-chairs and I will organize meetings to address the various challenges surrounding data mobilisation. We will be breaking down these obstacles into more manageable parts and forming Working Groups to propose practical solutions. By doing so, we aim to develop real-world solutions that can lead to permanently mobile and accessible salmon data products.
This is an exciting time for salmon research, and I’m thrilled to be part of a movement that promises to deepen our understanding of this keystone species and its rapid decline. Through increased collaboration and data sharing, we can make meaningful strides in preserving salmon populations across the globe. Let’s keep pushing forward together.
If you have any questions please contact me on graeme@atlanticsalmontrust.org, and in the meantime you can sign up for a free RDA membership here: https://www.rd-alliance.org/register/ and view our Interest Group here: https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/salmon-research-and-monitoring-ig/
1 Diack et al, 2024 (preprint). Salmon Data Mobilization. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/hk4gu
2 Wilkinson et al., 2016. The FAIR guiding principles for scientific data management and stewardship. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.18