Sea life census

[Red Squirrel]

source

After three years of searching, a global census has found 210,000 species in the world's oceans, but scientists predict the final count could be 10 times higher.

The findings are in a preliminary report from the Census of Marine Life, a U.S. $1 billion 10-year program involving hundreds of scientists from more than 50 countries. The census is designed to assess the diversity and distribution of species in the under-explored big deep, which covers nearly 70% of the Earth's surface.

"The census is an attempt to level the playing field and I hope that by 2010 we will know as much about life in the oceans as about life on land," says Dr Ron O'Dor, a squid expert from Nova Scotia who is coordinating the census.

Over 15,300 species of marine fish are now in the census database and experts involved in the count expect the final tally to be roughly 20,000. New finds are being made weekly, at an average rate of 160 fish species - new to science - per year.

But the census takes in more than just fish species. Program director Mr Jesse Ausubel, for example, has highlighted research on Pacific turtles which visit every part of the world's biggest ocean during their breeding cycle.

"They may leave their eggs on a beach in Mexico and then swim down the coast of South America and then swim to the Galapagos and Polynesia and then up to Japan, back north of Hawaii and to California and go down again," he says. "Over the course of two or three years, a turtle may visit the entire Pacific."

The census also revealed a biodiversity bonanza in a coral reef near the Pacific nation of New Caledonia. When researchers examined the reef, which lived in just three metres of water, they found it contained 130,000 molluscs representing 3,000 species, many of which have never been seen before.

Unknowable depths
Two obvious challenges are the vast size of the oceans and zone of complete darkness in the deeper parts of the ocean. At these depths live fast-swimming, impossible-to-catch giant squid and massive red jelly fish with muscular arms.

According to Dr Sally Troy, chief scientist of the Australian National Oceans Office which is co-ordinating Australia's contribution to the census, the aim is not to survey every inch of the sea, rather to use sampling techniques to model what could be there.

Troy told ABC Science Online it was unlikely scientists would find all the species predicted to be out there by the end of the census. Not only could there be unpredictable niche habitats that support new species, but there are physical restrictions to probing the oceans. One challenge would be how to use remote-operated vehicles in areas such as dark, deep canyons and overhangs.

Troy says Australia had just joined the census, and will contribute findings from a recent government-funded expedition to the deep waters of the Lord Howe Rise and Norfolk Ridge. The trip, in May-June this year, identified more than 500 fish and 1300 invertebrate species.


Bioprospecting
The research is also turning up new biological resources which could be exploited for new drugs. For example, a new species, the Rasta Sponge, was recently found off the Florida coast. This red-coloured invertebrate produces chemicals which could help treat cancerous tumours, according to the experts.

"I don't think the census is likely throw up whole new fisheries, but it has been throwing up these new species. The opportunity for bioprospecting is quite real," says Troy.

However, she describes the census as a "large scale public good exercise".

"For us it's not so much a commercial proposition per se, it's about getting the information that is the basis for industry, conservation and meshing those different sorts of objectives into better ocean management," she says.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:1525, old post ID:12822