AtlantECO Deliverable - D4.2 - Handbook of Standards and Best Practices

The present deliverable (D4.2) constitutes version 2 of the Handbook of Standards and Best Practices regarding AtlantECO's augmented observations and technological innovations as described in Work Package 4. The Handbook will be developed throughout the project and will be delivered progressively as four revised and augmented deliverables (D4.1-D4.4). The Handbook will address standards and best practices with respect to:

• Sample collection
• Sample biobanking
• Sample analysis
• Access and Benefits Sharing
• Provenance reporting
• Environmental context reporting

AtlantECO will generate new observations as part of the activities described in its Grant Agreement and also via a number of synergies with other European and International projects. The Handbook aims to harmonise as much as possible the methodologies used across these projects on some key types of observations, while allowing enough flexibility to adapt methodologies to the different observation programmes, therefore maximising the adoption of the standards and best practices.  The present deliverable augments the Handbook with a collection of packages made publicly available on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4897860).

The Handbook includes from the previous version:

• A short introduction to the Project’s goals, organisation and expected outcomes
• Guiding principles for the design of AtlantECO's system of standards & best practices

The system of base protocols presented in version 1 is augmented with two packages:

• The Mission Microbiomes handbook of sampling protocols
• The Continuous Plankton Recorder handbook of sampling protocols

The capacity building strategy presented in version 1 is augmented with three packages:

• A genetic analysis package
• An imaging analysis package
• An Access and Benefits Sharing package