The European Ocean Biogeographic Information System (EurOBIS) is a distributed system that allows you to search multiple datasets simultaneously for biogeographic information on marine organisms. EurOBIS has been developed within the MarBEF network and acts as the European node of OBIS. This distributed system to present biogeographic information will integrate individual datasets on marine organisms into one large consolidated database. Through collaboration with OBIS the scientific community will have rapid free access to data on marine species distributions, and ocean environmental data. The ultimate goal of EurOBIS is to provide the end-user with a fully searchable biogeographic database, focused on three main parameters of a distribution record: taxonomy, temporal and geographical cover. Within EurOBIS the European Register for Marine Species (ERMS) will function as the taxonomic backbone and each species list from every incoming dataset will be matched with this register.