During three expeditions to the island (2009 and 2010), the diversity, abundance and status of octocorals were explored. Seven species of octocorals were recorded: Leptogorgia alba, Pacifigorgia cf. lacerata, Pacifigorgia sp.1 y Pacifigorgia sp.2, Muricea cf. fruticosa, Muricea sp., and the invasive species Carijoa riisei. Octocorals form dense aggregations in rocky walls and cliffs, with higher abundances between 10 and 20 m, reaching up to 20 colonies m-2. The most abundant species was Pacifigorgia cf. lacerata with a dominance of more than 60 % and a frequency of occurrence of 100 % for all visited sites. According to depth, three well-defined zones were determined for most sites. A deep zone between 25 and 40 m with an exclusive dominance of L. alba, a shallow assemblage between 7 and 20 m dominated by Pacifigorgia spp., and a transition zone between 18 and 25 m with a mixture of L. alba and P. cf. lacerata. Surprisingly, during November 2009, diseases of possible fungal origin visibly affected populations of Leptogorgia and Pacifigorgia. Subsequently, during February 2010 the same populations of octocorals were monitored and up to 66 % of the colonies were already dead in some locations. Leptogorgia had a significant reduction at El Arrecife site, while Pacifigorgia cf. lacerata had high mortality at La Nevera and El Freezer sites, and a recovery in El Arrecife. There was a notable improvement in disease prevalence by July 2010 with less than 10 % of diseased colonies. The invasive species C. riisei was observed in La Catedral and El Monstruo bank. Thus, this information increases considerably the knowledge of octocorals on Malpelo Island and is the first warning of possible threats against local octocoral populations, such as fungal diseases and the invasive octocoral C. riisei.

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Colombia is a "megadiverse" country with vast natural resources. A history of recent conflict means that information is only now being collected on the natural capital of regions that were previously unexplored. Better access to data, tools, and expertise is required for evidence-supported decisions on the conservation of these resources.The development of a bespoke cyberinfrastructure could help fulfill this need by providing access to digital resources in a collaborative cyberenvironment. We outline key priorities and develop a reference framework for building cyberinfrastructure in Colombia. This framework could be applied to other fields and countries to promote knowledge exchange, scientific innovation, and socioeconomic growth.

Parrotfish (Family Scaridae) are a family of herbivorous fishes crucial to coral reef health, particularly for Caribbean reefs due to their declining coral cover. However, despite parrotfish are fully protected in some countries, they are still heavy fished in most of their Caribbean range. The consequences of this targeted fishery in the Colombian Caribbean are not fully understood due to a lack of local conservation and management resources. This research aimed to evaluate and enhance the conservation status and protection of parrotfish among local communities in the National Natural Park Corales del Rosario and San Bernardo. Underwater visual census surveys (UVC) were undertaken to evaluate reef fish community structure, and participatory education campaigns and activities were carried out with local communities to raise awareness about parrotfish ecology and their functional role in conserving Caribbean coral reef ecosystems of Colombia. UVC showed parrotfish to be dominant in the fish community, yet there was evidence of exploitation of large adults by selective fishing. Conflicts exist between the community and environmental authorities because fishing regulations are not clear, and the level of enforcement is insufficient. Parrotfish are sold to tourists, as red snapper to fulfil high seafood demand since commercially valuable fish are now scarce. However, following intensive awareness-raising activities developed as part of this study, the community has started to recognise the vital ecological role of parrotfish in coral reef systems, and are suggesting a redrafting of fishing legislation by the environmental authorities, in order to recognise and incorporate the traditional fishing rights of human communities living within the MPA. Lobbying for the protection of parrotfish and inclusion of local communities in decision-making will take time, but this research represents the crucial first steps towards sustainable practice and cooperative alliances in the Colombian Caribbean.

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Historically, some of the most successful biodiversity data sharing initiatives have been developed particularly in North America, Europe, and Australia. In parallel, and driven by necessity, tools, practices and standards were shared across othes communities. In the last decade, great efforts have been made by countries in other regions to join the biodiversity data network and share their data worldwide. Although knowledge, tools, and documentation are broadly distributed, language is the main constraint for their use, as most of it is only available in English. English may be the first most spoken language worldwide (Eberhard et al. 2020), but it is not native to most of the population, including a sizable proportion of the United States (Ryan 2013). For instance, Spanish is listed as the second most spoken native language worldwide, after Mandarin Chinese (Eberhard et al. 2020). While recognizing that English is currently considered the “universal language” for scientifically-related activities, it has been pointed out that a large proportion of biodiversity scientific knowledge is not produced in English, and that language constitutes a barrier to sharing knowledge (Amano et al. 2016). Actions to overcome this have been called for, for example by the 2nd Global Biodiversity Informatics Conference (GBIC2) in its list of ambitions for supporting international collaboration (Hobern et al. 2019), but are still largely missing in the broad community. Language affects the understanding and use of biodiversity data standards and related documentation for all the community, both English and non-English speakers. Our findings in the Latin American region suggest that the availability of materials in other languages, namely Spanish and Portuguese, would greatly benefit the region and improve our involvement in biodiversity data sharing. Also, on the other hand, the English speaking community would benefit from better understanding knowledge in other non-English languages, allowing broader use of data from all regions. This work also constitutes a plea from the Latin American and the Spanish-speaking community at large to the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) to explore and incorporate other languages, hence fostering understanding, and therefore widening the use of TDWG standards in our region. We provide a list of people supporting the petition as Supplementary Material (Suppl. material 1). In the petition we also identify people (more than 60% of the signatories) who are willing to contribute to translating TDWG resources into Spanish. There is no single, best mechanism to move this initiative forward, but the approaches of some other initiatives (e.g., the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) translators network) are being explored, weighing resources needed both from the volunteers and the management perspectives. We will present the different options for the community to evaluate and decide upon a suitable action plan.

Large herbivorous fishes, such as parrotfishes, play a critical role in coral reef ecosystems by limiting the coverage of macroalgae. Yet, in the Colombian Caribbean, parrotfishes are being increasingly targeted for human consumption as the demand for fish increases with tourist numbers. The Colombian Caribbean is dominated by Afro-descendant communities, and music is a deeply rooted form of expression and communication. ‘Champeta’, the local music folklore, is heard at all times of day and danced continuously in the islands off the coast of Cartagena. We conducted a survey of local tourist and fisheries stakeholders to characterise the parrotfish fishery, and designed a contextualised awareness-raising campaign of the ecological role of parrotfish and the need for management in the Islands of the Corales del Rosario and San Bernardo National Park. In doing so, we test if Champeta could be used as a mechanism for social-ecological change in Caribbean coastal communities in the context of coral reef conservation. Locals were engaged in every aspect of the campaign, especially with the song, as the campaign was a process rooted in their culture, interests and idiosyncrasies. Surveys of restaurants illustrated the size of the fishery and the extent of misinformation surrounding the consumption of parrotfish by tourists. We found that both locals and tourists held misconceptions about the ecological role of parrotfish and were supportive of efforts to protect them.