World Ocean Census : A Global Survey of Marine Life

by Crist, Darlene Trew

• ISBN13: 9781554074341
• ISBN10: 1554074347
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-09-01
• Publisher: Firefly Books Ltd

Summary

This is an insider's description of the comprehensive scientific project Census ofMarine Life, and what it is revealing as ocean life is seriously threatened. The Census ofMarine Life was launched in the year 2000 with the goal of producing the first-ever ocean census by 2010. Two thousand scientists from 82 nations agreed to the mandate to answer three important questions: ¿ what once lived in the global ocean? ¿ what is living there naw? ¿ what will live there in the future? With the census nearing completion, scientists around the world will inherit critical data that will be studied for decades to come. It will be a basis for answering such simple questions as "what will become ofsharks, whales and reefs?"

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

What Lived in the Ocean?

The Known, the Unknown and the Unknowable

The Great Unknown

The Census of Marine Life

Painting a Picture of the Past

What Once Lived in the Ocean

Records of Decline

In Quest of a Zero-Year Baseline

Managing the Fisheries

Charting a New Course of Study

What Lives in the Ocean?

Expanding the Use of Technology

Reaching the Research Sites

Using Sound to "See" Under Water

Advances in Optical Technology

Collecting Specimens

Studying the Movements of Marine Life

Identifying the Collected Species

Census Data Available to the World

Animals as Ocean Observers

Developments in Tagging

Facing Extremes

Disappearing Ice Oceans

Uncovering Hidden Oceans

Surprises in the Southern Ocean

Opening Windows of Knowledge

Unexpected Diversity at the Edges of the Sea

Coral Reefs in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands

The Gulf of Maine: Past and Present

A New Habitat for Alaska

The Way Forward

Unexplored Ecosystems: Vents, Seeps, Seamounts and Abyssal Plains

Hydrothermal Vents

Continental Margins and Cold-Water Seeps

Seamounts

Abyssal Plains

Unraveling the Mystery of New Life-Forms

The Name Game

Identifying the Drifters

Where No One Has Gone Before

A Window Below the Ice

Eyes and Ears in the Deep

Visualizing the Invisible

Looking Ahead

What Will Live in the Ocean?

Forecasting the Future

The Demise of the Great Sharks

Changes in Fisheries Practice Help Whales

The Path Forward

The Census Has Made a Difference

Glossary

Further Reading

Photo Credits

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

IntroductionUnlocking the Mystery of What Lives Below the Surface of the Global SeaFor thousands of years, indigenous traditions have described the ocean as the mythological birthplace of life on Earth, a mysterious place filled with life-sustaining forces. In an ancient myth of the Yurok Indians of California, two great beings, Thunder and Earthquake, worked together to create the ocean and fill it with water. The animals came to live there because of its beauty. Their story speaks of seals that came to the newly formed ocean "as if they were thrown in by handfuls." Looking upon the ocean basin they had made -- vast, deep and full of water -- Earthquake and Thunder were satisfied that their job was done. The ocean was large enough to provide sustenance for all of Earth's creatures.It is not surprising that the ocean has long fascinated humankind. Earth is the only planet known to have liquid water at the surface, and very little of the ocean has been scientifically investigated. However, there are accepted theories about its formation and composition and even some consensus about how it works, despite the lack of comprehensive data. Most scientists believe that the first, shallow oceans formed between 4 billion and 3.5 billion years ago. As the molten hot newly forming crust of Earth cooled, it gave off great volumes of steam and water vapor, which in turned caused clouds to form and rain to fall. The rain carried salts and other elements from Earth's cooling surface into shallow depressions or basins in the crust. Before an ocean could form, the temperature had to fall below 100 degrees C, the boiling point of water, so that the liquid could remain stable.Over time and through complex geological processes, cooled crustal plates formed over the more molten interior mantle, and the ocean basins deepened. As the plates slowly circulated over the molten mantle, they drew together and were pulled apart over and over again, eventually forming Earth's first supercontinent -- a single landmass consisting of all the modern continents -- Vaalbara. Believed to have formed between 3.6 billion and 3.3 billion years ago, it was surrounded by a vast sea. As this early supercontinent broke apart and the crustal plates continued their journey, the configuration of the ocean changed as well. As we know it today, the world's ocean accounts for roughly 71 percent of our planet's surface and 99 percent of its inhabitable volume; its average depth is approximately 3.8 kilometers (close to 2.4 miles).Scientists are still trying to unravel one of the greatest mysteries of Earth: when did "life" first appear and how did it happen? The scientific community has been debating the timing and mechanisms of the origin of life for many years. Most agree that the earliest life-forms evolved in the ocean, most likely as primitive, one-celled forms that appeared about 3 billion years ago. This primitive life was all that existed for approximately the next 2 billion years. Then a profusion of multicellular life exploded and began to fill the oceans. As some marine species became able to live on land, new and increasingly complex forms of life began to appear all over the planet.Many of the microscopic life-forms, or microbes, that currently live in the ocean may be similar to Earth's early life, and their abundance is extraordinary. Census microbiologist Mitch Sogin and his team at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, discovered more than 20,000 kinds of microbes in a single liter (about 1 quart) of seawater; previous research had led them to expect only 1,000 to 3,000. "Peering through a laboratory microscope into a drop of seawater is like looking at the stars on a clear night," says Census of Marine Life marine microbiologist Victor Gallardo, of Universidad de Concepción, Chile. "New DNA tag-sequencing technology increases resolution much like the Hubble Telescope did for space. We can