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The Census of Marine Life was a 10-year, US $650 million scientific initiative, involving a global network of researchers in more than 80 nations, engaged to assess and explain the
diversity Diversity, diversify, or diverse may refer to: Business *Diversity (business), the inclusion of people of different identities (ethnicity, gender, age) in the workforce * Diversity marketing, marketing communication targeting diverse customers ...
, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans. The world's first comprehensive Census of Marine Life — past, present, and future — was released in 2010 in London. Initially supported by funding from the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is an American philanthropic nonprofit organization. It was established in 1934 by Alfred P. Sloan Jr., then-president and chief executive officer of General Motors. The Sloan Foundation makes grants to support o ...
, the project was successful in generating many times that initial investment in additional support and substantially increased the baselines of knowledge in often underexplored ocean realms, as well as engaging over 2,700 different researchers for the first time in a global collaborative community united in a common goal, and has been described as "one of the largest scientific collaborations ever conducted".


Project history

According to Jesse Ausubel, Senior Research Associate of the Program for the Human Environment of Rockefeller University and science advisor to the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is an American philanthropic nonprofit organization. It was established in 1934 by Alfred P. Sloan Jr., then-president and chief executive officer of General Motors. The Sloan Foundation makes grants to support o ...
, the idea for a "Census of Marine Life" originated in conversations between himself and Dr. J. Frederick Grassle, an oceanographer and benthic ecology professor at
Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...
, in 1996. Grassle had been urged to talk with Ausubel by former colleagues at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and was at that time unaware that Ausubel was also a program manager at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, funders of a number of other large scale "public good" science-based projects such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Ausubel was instrumental in persuading the Foundation to fund a series of "feasibility workshops" over the period 1997-1998 into how the project might be conducted, one result of these workshops being the broadening of the initial concept from a "Census of the Fishes" into a comprehensive "Census of Marine Life". Results from these workshops, plus associated invited contributions, formed the basis of a special issue of ''Oceanography'' magazine in 1999; later that year, a workshop in
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addressed the formation of an
Ocean Biogeographic Information System The Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS), formerly Ocean Biogeographic Information System, is a web-based access point to information about the distribution and abundance of living species in the ocean. It was developed as the information ...
(OBIS) which would serve to collate existing knowledge about the distribution of organisms in the ocean and form the information management component of the Census. The Census began in a formal sense with the announcement in May 2000 of eight grants totaling about 4 million US$ to create OBIS, as reported in ''Science'' magazine, 2 June.Ausubel, Jesse H. 2001. "The Census of Marine Life: progress and prospects." ''Fisheries'' Volume 26(7): 33-36.
/ref> Meanwhile, an International Scientific Steering Committee was formed in 1999, which by 2001 envisaged "about half a dozen pilot ieldprograms" for the period 2002-2004 which, along with OBIS and another project called "
History of Marine Animal Populations The History of Marine Animal Populations (HMAP) is an international, interdisciplinary research initiative. It comprises the historical component of the Census of Marine Life and is designed to measure and explain patterns of long-term change in ...
" (HMAP), would provide the initial activities of the Census, to be followed by an additional series of field programs in 2005-2007, culminating in an analysis and integration phase in 2008-2010. During the operation of the Census, an additional non-field project was added, the Future of Marine Animal Populations (FMAP), which concentrated on forecasting the future of life in the oceans using
modeling A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...
and simulation tools. As a general method of working, project proposals would be debated within the Scientific Steering Committee and, if recommended for funding, a formal submission would be made to the Sloan Foundation for funding to support the Principal Investigators (PIs) and a Project Coordinator, meetings of project participants, and additional Synthesis and Education and Outreach activities. Since Sloan Foundation approval was dependent on promises of contributions from additional sources, and projects were encouraged to bring additional resources on board during their operation, the Foundation funds committed were effectively leveraged many times to provide a much more substantial program than would otherwise have been possible. As core infrastructure components, the Foundation also supported the Census' International Scientific Steering Committee and Secretariat, the U.S. National Committee, and an Education and Outreach Network to lift the project's visibility and engage other nations and organizations. The Census was ultimately estimated to have cost US $650 million, of which the Sloan Foundation contributed US $75 million with the remainder supplied by a large number of participating institutions, countries, and national and international organizations in the form of both direct and in-kind contributions. In a retrospective review in 2011, David Penman and co-authors wrote:


Census program

The Census consisted of three major component themes organized around the questions: #What has lived in the oceans? #What does live in the oceans? #What will live in the oceans? The largest component of the Census involved investigating what currently lives in the world's oceans through 14 field projects. Each sampled the biota in one of six realms of the global oceans using a range of technologies. These projects were as follows: * Arctic Ocean: ArcOD (
Arctic Ocean Diversity The Census of Marine Life was a 10-year, US $650 million scientific initiative, involving a global network of researchers in more than 80 nations, engaged to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans. Th ...
) * Antarctic Ocean: CAML ( Census of Antarctic Marine Life) * Mid-Ocean Ridges: MAR-ECO ( Mid-Atlantic Ridge Ecosystem Project) * Vents and Seeps: ChEss ( Biogeography of Deep-Water Chemosynthetic Ecosystems) * Abyssal Plains: CeDAMar (
Census of Diversity of Abyssal Marine Life The Census of Diversity of Abyssal Marine Life (CeDAMar) is a field project of the Census of Marine Life that studies the species diversity of one of the largest and most inaccessible environments on the planet, the abyssal plain An abyssa ...
) * Seamounts: CenSeam (
Global Census of Marine Life on Seamounts Global Census of Marine Life on Seamounts (commonly CenSeam) is a global scientific initiative, launched in 2005, that is designed to expand the knowledge base of marine life at seamounts. Seamounts are underwater mountains, not necessarily volcani ...
) * Continental Margins: COMARGE (Continental Margin Ecosystems) * Continental Shelves: POST (
Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking Project The Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking Project (POST) is a field project of the Census of Marine Life that researches the behavior of marine animals through the use of ocean telemetry and data management systems. This system of telemetry consists of hig ...
) * Near Shore: NaGISA (
Natural Geography in Shore Areas NaGISA (Natural Geography in Shore Areas or Natural Geography of In-Shore Areas) is an international collaborative effort aimed at inventorying, cataloguing, and monitoring biodiversity of the in-shore area. So named for the Japanese word "nagisa ...
) * Coral Reefs: CReefs (
Census of Coral Reefs The Census of Coral Reefs (CReefs) is a field project of the Census of Marine Life that surveys the biodiversity of coral reef ecosystems internationally. The project works to study what species live in coral reef ecosystems, to develop standar ...
) * Regional Ecosystems: GoMA (
Gulf of Maine Program The Census of Marine Life was a 10-year, US $650 million scientific initiative, involving a global network of researchers in more than 80 nations, engaged to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans. Th ...
) * Microbes: ICoMM (
International Census of Marine Microbes The International Census of Marine Microbes is a field project of the Census of Marine Life that inventories microbial diversity by cataloging all known diversity of single-cell organisms including bacteria, Archaea, Protista, and associated ...
) * Zooplankton: CMarZ (
Census of Marine Zooplankton The Census of Marine Zooplankton is a field project of the Census of Marine Life that has aimed to produce a global assessment of the species diversity, biomass, biogeographic distribution, and genetic diversity of more than 7,000 described speci ...
) * Top Predators: TOPP (
Tagging of Pacific Predators Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP) began in 2000 as one of many projects formed by Census of Marine Life, an organization whose goal is to help understand and explain the diversity and abundances of the ocean in the past, present, and future. After ...
) These field projects were complemented by the three non-field Census projects, namely HMAP, FMAP and OBIS. A series of National and Regional Implementation Committees (NRICs) was also established to progress the involvement of particular countries and regions in Census activities. Towards the end of the project, additional teams were created for education and outreach, and mapping and vizualization products, while a "synthesis" group coordinated the final outcomes (publications, etc.).


Outcomes

During its lifespan, the Census involved some 2,700 scientists from more 80 countries who spent 9,000 days at sea participating in more than 540 census-badged expeditions, as well as uncounted nearshore sampling events. In addition to many thousands of records of previously known species, Census scientists found more than 6,000 marine species potentially new to science and had completed formal descriptions of 1,200 of them up to 2010. Census scientists visited many parts of the global ocean to learn more about species ranging in size from the blue whale to minute zooplankton and microbes (bacteria and viruses); sampled from the world's coldest regions to the warm tropics, from deep-sea hydrothermal vents to coastal ecosystems; tracked the movements of fish and interrogated historical records to learn what the ocean used to be like before the influence of humans; and employed forecasting methods to predict what may happen to ocean life in the future. One of the largest scientific collaborations ever conducted, by 2011 the Census had produced over 3,100 scientific papers and many thousands of other information products, with over 30 million species distribution records freely available via OBIS. As well as its tangible scientific legacy, the Census was instrumental in building a global community of researchers, many of whom had never collaborated before until they were brought together under the auspices of the Census, and a new approach to collaborative research. As Ian Poiner, outgoing chair of the Census has said, "The Census changed our views on how things could be done. We shared our problems and we shared our solutions." In their 2011 review of the Census commissioned by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, David Penman and co-authors wrote: " rior to the Census there wasA fragmented research community: Marine biodiversity researchers had few active coordinated national and international research programs and taxonomic research in particular was underfunded and scattered in disparate organizations...
here was Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to: Software * Here Technologies, a mapping company * Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here Television * Here TV (formerly "here!"), a TV ...
No culture of collaboration and data sharing: Unlike the oceanographic community, marine biology was characterized by small research projects leading to publications but there was little experience or willingness to openly collaborate and share data... nd in addition there wasNo recognized open-access data portal for marine biodiversity data: Unlike the "physical science" oceanographic community, there was no recognized data depository or common standards for sharing marine biodiversity data." As summarizing remarks, Penman ''et al.'', writing in 2011, stated: In 2011, the Census Steering Committee received the
International Cosmos Prize The International Cosmos Prize was established in 1993, commemorating Expo '90 in Osaka, Japan. The objective of the prize was to develop the basic concept of Expo 90, "The Harmonious Coexistence between Nature and Mankind" and is awarded annual ...
in recognition of its decade of international ocean research spanning multiple scientific disciplines.


Partnerships

The Census partnered with the
Encyclopedia of Life The ''Encyclopedia of Life'' (''EOL'') is a free, online encyclopedia intended to document all of the 1.9 million living species known to science. It is compiled from existing trusted databases curated by experts and with the assistance of non ...
in creating pages for marine species, and supplied marine material for DNA barcoding in the
Barcode of Life The Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) was an international initiative dedicated to supporting the development of DNA barcoding as a global standard for species identification. CBOL's Secretariat Office is hosted by the National Museum of ...
project. Google and Census of Marine Life partnered on Google Earth 5.0. Ocean in Google Earth contains a layer devoted to the Census of Marine Life that allows users to follow scientists from the Census on expeditions and see marine life and features found during the Census. A partnership with the French film company Galatée Films resulted in the production of the film '' Oceans'' which was released in 2009, featuring film of over 200 species at more than 50 global locations.Snelgrove, pages 76-77.


See also

* Marine life *
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is an American philanthropic nonprofit organization. It was established in 1934 by Alfred P. Sloan Jr., then-president and chief executive officer of General Motors. The Sloan Foundation makes grants to support o ...
*
Ocean Biogeographic Information System The Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS), formerly Ocean Biogeographic Information System, is a web-based access point to information about the distribution and abundance of living species in the ocean. It was developed as the information ...


Notes


References


Bibliography

* Ausubel, Jesse H., Crist, Darlene Trew & Waggoner, Paul E. (eds). 2010. First Census of Marine Life 2010: Highlights of a Decade of Discovery. Census of Marine Life. . Available at http://www.coml.org/pressreleases/census2010/PDF/Highlights-2010-Report-Low-Res.pdf * Snelgrove, Paul V. R. 2010. Discoveries of the Census of Marine Life: Making Ocean Life Count. Cambridge University Press, 270 pp. (paperback), 9781107000131 (hardback). * Penman, David, Pearce, Andrew and Morton, Missy. 2011. The Census of Marine Life: Review of Lessons Learned. Report to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, New York, June 2011. Landcare Research, New Zealand, Contract Report: LC 271. Available at https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/uploads/public/researchpubs/MarineLifeCensusReview.pdf


Further reading

* McIntyre, Alasdair D. (editor). 2010. Life in the World’s Oceans: Diversity, Distribution, and Abundance. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 384 pp. - A summary of findings and discoveries by the 17 Census project
Publisher's information
* Knowlton, Nancy. 2010. Citizens of the Sea: Wondrous Creatures from the Census of Marine Life. National Geographic, 216 pp. - Portraits of about 100 specie
Publisher's information


External links


Census of Marine Life home page


''TED'', 2010.
Census of Marine Life Mapping and Visualization project page

PLOS (Public Library of Science) Collections: Census of Marine Life


(educational site)
Census of Marine Life news releases
{{DEFAULTSORT:Census Of Marine Life Marine biology Fisheries databases Biogeography Ecology organizations Zoology Biological censuses