Oceans could contain 750,000 undiscovered species

The world's oceans are teeming with far greater diversity of life than was previously thought, according to the first Census of Marine Life which has been 10 years in the making.
Richard Gray, The Telegraph 3 Oct 10;

Giant sea spiders the size of dinner plates. Wriggly creatures nicknamed "Squidworms" because of their strange-looking tentacles. A blind lobster whose Latin name means "terrible claw".

These are among the new types of animal discovered in the most ambitious-ever survey of the world's oceans, which concludes tomorrow with the publication of the first Census of Marine Life.

The report marks the first attempt to provide a definitive record of all the species of plants and animals living in the sea.

It will reveal that almost 250,000 have now been identified, while predicting there may be at least another 750,000 still waiting to be discovered beneath the waves.

The Census has been 10 years in the making, and during the project scientists from around the world have identified more than 6,000 new species.

Yet despite this great diversity of life, the report will warn that humans are having a devastating impact on the numbers of many species through fishing and pollution.

"Marine scientists are at present unable to provide good estimates of the total number of species that flourish in the ocean," it will say.

"It will probably take at least another decade of the Census before we can defensibly estimate the total number of marine species.

"The deep-sea floor is no longer considered a desert, characterised by a paltry diversity of species.

"Over exploitation, habitat loss and pollution have depleted many fisheries that previously provided food and employment."

More than 2,700 scientists have helped to compile the Census, with more than 540 expeditions to visit all of the world's oceans.

Among the new species discovered are Dinochelus ausubeli, the blind lobster with a long, spiny, pincer, which was found 330 yards (300 metres) below the surface in the Philippine Sea.

British scientists have made huge numbers of finds in the cold and inhospitable ocean around Antarctica. In these conditions, marine life grows larger than anywhere else in the world.

Sea spiders, a family of eight-legged creatures which rarely grow bigger than a fingernail in UK waters, have been discovered up to nine inches (23cm) across in Antarctic seas.

The deep sea floor, previously thought to be an almost lifeless desert due to the huge pressure, pitch black conditions and cold water found at depths greater than 6,000 feet (1.8km), has provided some of the biggest surprises.

Researchers have discovered huge communities of different species scattered across the ocean floor, living at the mouth of thermal vents and rifts that seep nutrients into the ocean.

Other species on the sea bed, away from vents, feed off the life that falls into the depths from the water above.

The "Squidworm", a new species of worm, was found living in the deep water of the Celebes Sea in south east Asia.

A furry crab, named the Yeti Crab or Kiwa hirsuta, was also among the discoveries when it was found beside a vent in the deep sea off Easter Island in the south Pacific. Not only was it a new species but part of a new family previously unknown to science.

Recently scientists have discovered a different member of the same family on the ocean floor off Costa Rica where cold fluid enriched with methane has been found seeping through the sea bed, sustaining colonies of animal life.

Dr Maria Baker, a researcher at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton and a project manager on the Census, said: "Life is much more widespread on the ocean floor than was thought.

"We still don't know how it spreads from vent to vent, but there could be stepping stones all over the place provided by food that falls from the water above.

"The Census provides us with a baseline to measure the effects that humans are having, but it is also opening people's eyes to what are in our oceans. It is showing us that we still have no idea of exactly what we are sharing our planet with."

Genetic testing now allows scientists to work out whether newly-discovered creatures are new species or just differently-coloured or shaped varients of those already known.

One new species of crustacean, which looks like a pale shrimp, was identified in this way. The all-white creature was initially thought to be a variety of Epimeria georgiana, which has orange specks, but turned out to be new when scientists looked at its DNA.

The number of plant and animal species is also dwarfed by the possible number of different types of microbes found in the seas - up to a billion, according to the Census.

Dr Huw Griffiths, a marine scientist at the British Antarctic Survey who has gone on some of the Census expeditions, said: "About 80 per cent of the species in the Antarctic live on the sea floor. It is incredibly rich and varied there.

"They are the sort of creatures that a palaeontologist might be more likely to recognise than a marine biologist because they seem to be communities we normally see in the fossil record than in modern oceans elsewhere."

Census shows exotic sea life; helps study BP spill
* Thousands of new marine species found in 10-year census
* Benchmark to help assess climate change, BP oil spill
* Many fish, other marine species, dodge census takers
Alister Doyle, Reuters 4 Oct 10;

OSLO, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Scientists completed a 10-year census of marine life on Monday after finding thousands of exotic new species in a project that will help assess threats to the oceans ranging from climate change to BP's (BP.L: Quote) oil spill.

The $650 million international census, by 2,700 experts in 80 nations, discovered creatures such as a hairy-clawed "yeti crab", luminous fish in the sunless depths, a shrimp thought extinct in Jurassic times and a 7-metre (23 ft) long squid.

But the project (www.coml.org), which reckoned most types of creatures dodged the census and were still to be found, also documented overfishing of cod or tuna, hazards from oil and other pollution and impacts of global warming.

"The news about the oceans is both very good and very bad," said Paul Snelgrove, of Memorial University in Canada, who compiled the final report of a census that found more life than expected from the Arctic Ocean to volcanic vents on the seabed.

It raised the estimate of known marine animals and plants bigger than microbes, from worms to blue whales, to nearly 250,000 from 230,000. And it estimated that far more, or 750,000 other species, were still to be found.

Scientists said the biggest gaps were in still unexplored tracts of the Arctic, Antarctic and eastern Pacific oceans. And much of the deep ocean floor had barely been sampled.

"There is an enormous opportunity," said Jesse Ausubel, a co-founder of the census and program director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. "There are three species out there to be discovered for every one we know."

The census itself found more than 6,000 potentially new species, led in numbers by crustaceans and molluscs, and made formal descriptions of more than 1,200 of them.

AGE, DISTANCE, SPEED

Among extremes, scientists found a metre-long tube worm an estimated 600 years old, tracked a sooty shearwater bird flying 64,000 km (40,000 miles) in the longest known annual migration and recorded a sailfish swimming at 110 kph (69 mph).

Among spinoffs, a 2009 review of the Gulf of Mexico found 8,332 species from fish to mammals in the area hit by BP's deep water blowout in April 2010, the worst spill in U.S. history.

"It's become one of the most valuable potential contributions of the census," Ausubel said of the Gulf survey. Checking the state of the Gulf against the public database would help understand damage -- and costs of BP's cleanup.

Two members of a five-strong commission named by U.S. President Barack Obama to investigate the spill - Terry Garcia and Donald Boesch -- had worked on the census.

In the longer term, monitoring the seas may help understand threats such as climate change and a related acidification of the oceans. Examination of the makeup of some of the creatures and plants might yield medical breakthroughs.

A related project had created a "barcode of life", inspired by the black and white lines on products in supermarkets, that allows scientists to identify species with a quick genetic test.

That has already exposed mislabelling of sushi in New York City and could have wide economic impact in tracking fraud in fish exports.

And the scientists said the census had successfully focused public attention on the beauty and variety of marine life and could help rally efforts to safeguard the seas.

Artists have been inspired by some creatures -- images of the yeti crab, found off Easter Island, has even been emblazoned on skateboards, Snelgrove said. "These critters are tremendous ambassadors for us," he added. (Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Global marine life census charts vast world beneath the seas
Beatrice Debut Yahoo News 5 Oct 10;

LONDON (AFP) – Results of the first ever global marine life census were unveiled Monday, revealing a startling overview after a decade-long trawl through the murky depths.

The Census of Marine Life estimated there are more than one million species in the oceans, with at least three-quarters of them yet to be discovered.

The 650-million-dollar (470-million-euro) international study discovered more than 6,000 potentially new species, and found some species considered rare were actually common.

The study said it offered "an unprecedented picture of the diversity, distribution and abundance of all kinds of marine life in Planet Ocean -- from microbes to whales, from the icy poles to the warm tropics, from the tidal near shores to the deepest dark depths."

The census establishes a baseline against which 21st-century changes can be monitored.

New species were discovered, marine highways and rest stops mapped and changes in species abundance were documented.

The research involved more than 2,700 scientists, 670 institutions, more than 540 expeditions and around 9,000 days at sea. Nearly 30 million observations of 120,000 species were made.

The census was formally launched in London, with more than 300 figures involved gathering to share the results and consider their implications.

"The census has far exceeded any dream that I had. We felt like the people who created the first dictionary and encylopedia 250 years ago," said Jesse Ausubel, a scientist who co-founded the study.

"The most surprising thing was beauty. Our eyes pumped out of our head in front of this beauty."

The survey set out to find out what used to live in the oceans, what lives there now and what might live there in the future.

The census said 16,764 species of fish had so far been described, but an estimated 5,000 more were yet to be discovered.

Scientists found some species thought extinct 50 million years ago, while other finds were less encouraging.

Around 40 percent of plankton, at the bottom of the ocean food chain, has disappeared in the last 30 years, which was put down to a rise in ocean temperatures.

Sharks have disappeared from 99 percent of some areas.

Australian Ian Poiner, chair of the census steering committee, said the researchers "systematically defined for the first time both the known and the vast unknown, unexplored ocean".

"All surface life depends on life inside and beneath the oceans. Sea life provides half of our oxygen and a lot of our food and regulates climate. We are all citizens of the sea," he said.

"While much remains unknown, including at least 750,000 undiscovered species and their roles, we are better acquainted now with our fellow travellers and their vast habitat on this globe."

The census documented a changing marine world, richer in diversity, more connected through distribution and movements, more impacted by humans and less explored than was expected.

The researchers used sound, satellites and electronics to track migratory routes.

They got down to 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) below the sea in the western Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench.

They affirmed that by weight up to 90 percent of marine life is microbial -- with the equivalent of 35 elephants for every living person.

Scientific steering committee vice-chair Myriam Sibuet of France, said: "The census enlarged the known world. Life astonished us everywhere we looked.

"In the deep sea we found luxuriant communities despite extreme conditions. The discoveries of new species and habitats both advanced science and inspired artists with their extraordinary beauty."

Much of the marine world remains to be explored, so vast are the seas.

The census shows where explorers have not yet looked. For more than 20 percent of the oceans' volume, the database has no records at all, and for large areas very few.

The findings are partially available on the www.iobis.org website.

Census shows connectedness of world's marine life
Seth Borenstein, Associated Press Yahoo News 4 Oct 10;

WASHINGTON – The world's oceans may be vast and deep, but a decade-long count of marine animals finds sea life so interconnected that it seems to shrink the watery world. An international effort to create a Census of Marine Life was completed Monday with maps and three books, increasing the number of counted and validated species to 201,206.

A decade ago the question of how many species are out there couldn't be answered. It also could have led to a lot of arguments among scientists. Some species were counted several or even dozens of times, said Jesse Ausubel of the Alfred Sloan Foundation, the co-founder of the effort that involved 2,700 scientists.

The $650 million project got money and help from more than 600 groups, including various governments, private foundations, corporations, non-profits, universities, and even five high schools. The Sloan foundation is the founding sponsor, contributing $75 million.

But what scientists learned was more than a number or a count. It was a sense of how closely life connects from one place to another and one species to another, Ausubel said.

Take the bizarre and minuscule shrimp-like creature called Ceratonotus steiningeri. It has several spikes and claws and looks intimidating — if it weren't a mere two-hundredths of an inch long. Five years ago this critter had never been seen before. No one knew of its existence.

Then, off the Atlantic coast of Africa as part of the census, it was found at a depth of more than three miles below the surface. It was one of 800 species found in that research trip, said discoverer Pedro Martinez Arbizu, a department head at the German Centre for Marine Biodiversity Research.

He was astonished to find that the tiny creature also was within the cataloging he'd made earlier 8,000 miles away in the central Pacific.

There was that critter again. Same shrimpy creature, different ocean.

"We were really very, very surprised about that," Arbizu said in an interview. "We think this species has a very broad distribution area."

In that way, Ceratonotus steiningeri exemplifies what the census found.

"We didn't know so much about the deep sea...," Arbizu said. "We believe now that the deep sea is more connected, also the different oceans, than we previously thought."

The census also describes a species of strange large squid that was only recently found in waters more than 3,000 feet deep. The 23-foot-long squid has large fins with arms and tentacles that have elbow-like bends. Scientists had seen it in larvae form before, but not in its full-blown glory until it was filmed at depth.

The census also highlighted marine life that makes commutes that put a suburban worker's daily grind to shame. Before the census started, the migration of the Pacific bluefin tuna had not been monitored much. But by tagging a 33-pound tuna, scientists found that it crossed the Pacific three times in just 600 days, according to Stanford University's Barbara Block. A different species of tuna, the Atlantic bluefin, migrates about 3,700 miles between North America and Europe. Humpback whales do a nearly 5,000 mile north-south migration.

Still, that's nothing compared to the sea bird that Ian Poiner of Australia studies.

He studied puffins that make a nearly 40,000-mile circle every year from New Zealand to Japan, Russia, Alaska, Chile and back in what the census calls the "longest-ever electronically recorded migration."

Other species, such as plankton and even seals, travel great lengths, but stay in the same part of the ocean. They travel thousands of feet between the surface into the depths of the oceans. The scientists measured elephant seals that dived about 1.5 miles, Ausubel said.

The census found another more basic connection in the genetic blueprint of life. Just as chimps and humans share more than 95 percent of their DNA, the species of the oceans have most of their DNA in common, too. Among fish in general, the snippets of genetic code that scientists have analyzed suggest only about a 2 to 15 percent difference, said Dirk Steinke, lead scientist for marine barcoding at the University of Guelph in Canada.

"Although these are really old species of fish, there's not much that separates them," Steinke said.


Related links
Photos from the census on the National Geographic website.