The Census of Marine Zooplankton is a field project of the
Census of Marine Life
The Census of Marine Life was a 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. The census cost US$650 milli ...
that has aimed to produce a global assessment of the species diversity,
biomass
Biomass is a term used in several contexts: in the context of ecology it means living organisms, and in the context of bioenergy it means matter from recently living (but now dead) organisms. In the latter context, there are variations in how ...
, biogeographic distribution, and genetic diversity of more than 7,000 described species of
zooplankton
Zooplankton are the heterotrophic component of the planktonic community (the " zoo-" prefix comes from ), having to consume other organisms to thrive. Plankton are aquatic organisms that are unable to swim effectively against currents. Consequent ...
that drift the ocean currents throughout their lives. CMarZ focuses on the deep sea, under-sampled regions, and
biodiversity
Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...
hotspots. From 2004 until 2011,
Ann Bucklin was the lead scientist for the project.
Technology plays a great role in CMarZ's research, including the use of integrated
morphological and molecular sampling through
DNA Barcoding
DNA barcoding is a method of species identification using a short section of DNA from a specific gene or genes. The premise of DNA barcoding is that by comparison with a reference library of such DNA sections (also called " sequences"), an indiv ...
. CMarZ makes its datasets available via the CMarZ Database.
References
External links
CMarZAlfred Wegener Institute archive page on CMarZ
Biological censuses
Marine biology
{{ocean-stub