Long-Term Marine Time Series as Critical Infrastructure: Data Rescue, FAIR Practices, and Methodological Continuity for Science and Policy

Sustained in situ observations of the marine environment underpin our ability to understand how ecosystems function and how they respond to a changing climate. At seasonal resolution they reveal community succession and the rhythms of pelagic systems. Across decades they are the only means of separating local variability and direct anthropogenic pressure from the slower signal of climate change. Neither models nor satellite products substitute for a measurement made repeatedly, in the same place, by a documented method.Yet the funding that sustains these programmes rarely matches the timescales they serve. Sampling is commonly supported in three or four year cycles, and long series are being lost worldwide at precisely the moment they are most needed. This gives the records that already exist a value well beyond their original purpose, and makes the work of preserving them — curating, documenting, standardising and licensing — a scientific contribution in its own right rather than an administrative afterthought.That work is chronically underestimated. Curation effort is invisible in most funding models. Series contain gaps, protocol changes and instrument transitions that must be documented rather than smoothed away. Access is often constrained by unclear licensing and acknowledgement conditions. Formats designed for one analyst decades ago are unreadable to the machines that would now use them. And the people who would benefit most — marine managers, spatial planners, and the bodies designating protected areas — are frequently unaware that the records exist at all.This Research Topic addresses the preservation, documentation and reuse of long-term in situ marine observations, and their translation into environmental policy and management. The focus is deliberately on in situ measurement rather than satellite or model products, and on the practical challenges of heterogeneous, historical and multi-domain data, including genomic records.We welcome Original Research, Reviews, Methods, Data Reports, Perspectives and case studies addressing:Challenges in preserving long time series: the underestimated burden of data curation and management, discontinuous acquisition, changes in protocol and instrumentation, and constraints on accessArchiving, preservation and documentation: metadata and methodological description sufficient for future reuse, alongside data policy, licensing and acknowledgement conditionsInternational standards and services: the case for consolidated, interoperable infrastructure rather than parallel national solutionsOpen data in practice, and formats usable by individual researchers and by machinesServing multiple users over time, from the original science question to global change research and policy assessmentCase studies of cross-border and cross-domain data use, including marine spatial planning and the designation of marine protected areasStakeholder engagement: reaching the managers and policymakers who are often unaware of the records available to themBy bringing together the people who maintain these records, the infrastructures that hold them, and the users who depend on them, this collection aims to establish long-term marine time series as recognised research infrastructure, and to set out what is required to keep them usable for the science and policy of the coming decades. Topic editors: Marina Lipizer, Rowena Fay Stern, Patricio A. Díaz, Li Kui, Patricia Miloslavich, Dimitar Berov Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/86734/long-term-marine-time-series-as-critical-infrastructure-data-rescue-fair-practices-and-methodological-continuity-for-science-and-policy