TCD Academic Plays Central Role in the World’s First Census of Marine Life
Posted on: 12 October 2010
The findings from the first global Census of Marine Life were announced recently by TCD’s Professor of Environmental History and Academic Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub, Professor Poul Holm, and three other marine experts at a global conference in London. ‘The Census of Marine Life 2010: A Decade of Discovery’, that commenced in 2000, is an international science research programme uniting thousands of researchers from more than 80 countries with the aim of assessing and explaining the diversity, distribution and abundance of life in the oceans.
During the conference an unprecedented picture of marine life that detailed over 250,000 species, more than 6,000 of which were potentially new breeds, was presented. The results reveal that life in the world’s oceans is richer, more connected and more altered than expected. Speaking about the project Professor Poul Holm commented: “The Census united scientists from more than 80 nations with different talents, equipment, and interests. It matched the immensity and complexity of ocean life with a human enterprise able to grasp it. Setting out to draw baselines of the diversity, distribution, and abundance of species, the first Census of Marine Life documented a changing ocean, richer in diversity, more connected through distribution and movements, more impacted by humans, and yet less explored than we had known.”
The global marine life database of the Census, built from more than 30 million observations, provides the first regional and global comparisons of marine species diversity. Prior to the project there was a critical need for better information that would aid the management that will sustain fisheries, conserve diversity, reverse losses of habitat, reduce impacts of pollution, and respond to global climate change. The Census now provides a scientific foundation upon which future ocean policy can be developed and marine research progressed. Using multiple data sets, many focusing on under-studied waters of the global ocean, Ocean Biogeographic Information System, the World Register of Marine Species, and the Encyclopedia of Life, are collectively becoming a complete marine biodiversity database of the world, a vital resource to policymakers and marine scientists.
The Census, which has a total of 14 strands, addresses three main questions:
- What lived in the ocean?
- What lives in the ocean?
- What will live in the ocean?
It is supported by private sources and government agencies the world over concerned with science, environment and fisheries.
The international collaboration required to create the Census is set to informally continue and efforts are currently underway to structure another such collaborative initiative for 2010 and beyond. Permanent legacies of the first Census of Marine Life are a publicly accessible database, OBIS, the Encyclopedia of Life, and the Barcode of Life, ensuring the means for future marine life research efforts.