Census of Marine Life Project :Making Ocean Life Count

NOAA

NOAA

For almost ten years now, a global network of researchers from 80 nations have been engaged in the Census of Marine Life Project (CoML) in order to assess and explain the diversity, distribution and abundance of life in the ocean.  The results of the project, the world’s first comprehensive census of marine life -past, present and future- will be released in 2010.  We should be thankful to the participating nations for their forethought in funding this project back in 2000, as it will prove an important baseline for monitoring the impacts of using the ocean for the generation of power and the  supply of water through desalination in the years to come.

The Census aims to make for the first time a comprehensive global list of all forms of life in the sea. No such unified list yet exists.  By 2010, the goal is to have all the old and the new species in an on-line encyclopedia with a web-page for every species. The Census also aims to produce maps where the animals have been observed or where they could live, that is, the territory or range of the species. Knowing the range matters a lot for people concerned about, for example, possible consequences of global climate change.  Lastly, no Census is complete without measures of abundance. They want to know not only that there is such a thing as a Madagascar crab but how many there are. For marine life, populations are being estimated either in numbers or in total kilos, called biomass.

The Census  evolved a strategy of 14 field projects that touch the major habitats and groups of species in the global ocean. Eleven field projects addressed habitats, such as seamounts or the Arctic Ocean. Three field projects looked globally at animals that either traverse the seas or appear globally distributed: the top predators such as tuna and the plankton and the microbes. The projects employed a mix of technologies. These included acoustics or sound, optics or cameras, tags placed on individual animals that store or report data, and genetics, as well as some actual capture of animals. The technologies complemented one another. Sound can survey large areas in the ocean, while light cannot. Light can capture detail and characters that sound cannot. And genetics can make identifications from fragments of specimens or larvae where pictures tell little.

The researchers have made many exciting discoveries such as: the discovery of the first Mid-Atlantic hydrothermal vent site south of the equator; the discovery of an isolated community of sea life under the Amery Ice Shelf of Antarctica; the discovery of deep water oyster banks which may challenge how scientists view past ocean habitats; findings by scientists studying the Mid-Atlantic Ridge ecosystem suggest that over 70% of the world’s oceans are devoid of sharks; as well as the discovery of new species such as the Kiwa hirsuta or “yeti crab”, an unusual, hairy crab that also represents a new family of crustaceans; a new giant species of lobster off the coast of Madagascar; and a new species of giant sulfur bacteria found in the  Southeast Pacific Ocean may provide insight into early forms of life on earth and could provide a potential model for the search for extraterrestrial life.

The Census is currently winding up its field work and is beginning the process of synthesizing the vast amount of data that has been collected throughout the project with the goal of releasing the first Census of Marine Life sometime in 2010.  To learn more about the project and to visit their website, click here.

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Posted by Tracey Smith on Jul 22 2009. Filed under Featured Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.