Developing zoo & phytoplankton EOV products in Blue-Cloud

As highlighted by Principle 5 of Ocean Literacy, the ocean supports a great diversity of life and ecosystems, which make up the vast majority of all life on our planet and are crucial for biological cycles as well as for economies all around the world. Comprehending this wealth of biodiversity, collecting reliable marine biodiversity data, being able to perform high-quality research across disciplines and countries, are all critical steps towards a sustainable management of the precious resources that the ocean provides. Marine plankton are at the base of the marine food web and play an important role in the functioning of coastal and open ocean ecosystems. Understanding how plankton changes through time and space is of key importance to assess the state of the marine plankton ecosystems and their response to climate change. The Blue-Cloud demonstrator Zoo- and Phytoplankton EOV Products is creating phyto- and zooplankton biomass and diversity products, working on data from leading European marine data infrastructures such as EMODnet, SeaDataNet, and Copernicus. In this article, we are going to explore the main results of the demonstrator, and its intended evolution. The Zoo and Phytoplankton EOV Products demonstrator is developed by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), in collaboration with the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Sorbonne University and GeoHydrodynamics and Environment Research (GHER) at the University of Liège. A dedicated Virtual Lab was developed in the Blue-Cloud Virtual Research Environment powered by D4Science, and introduced through a public webinar in February 2021 describing its scope, key features and the potential benefits for the ocean science community. Test the Virtual La