An oceanic endeavor

Marine census catalogs creatures that roam all corners of the seas

October 8, 2010 at 3:58 pm

SPINELESS MARVELS A new species nicknamed the yeti crab looked photoshopped to a startled public when researchers first released an image of the deep-dwelling invertebrate. The specimen, belonging to the species now called Kiwa hirsuta, came from 2,228 meters down in the South Pacific. A wrap-up analysis put out by Census of Marine Life researchers concludes that most marine diversity lies not in fish but in life-forms without backbones. A. Fifis 2006

COOL CUKE This pink marvel really is a sea cucumber, though very different from the fat, dark sluggish forms nudging along in tide pools. The Celebes Sea beauty, Enypniastes eximia, ranks among the small group of sea cucumbers that can leave the ocean floor and swim gracefully, if slowly. By undulating its collarlike structure, E. eximia can move dozens of meters up into the water column. Census researchers found the cuke some 2,500 meters below the surface of the Celebes Sea. Dropping down to more than 5,000 meters in places, the Celebes has several deep, chilly basins. Yet it also sits within the Coral Triangle, a region famed for shallow, warm wonderlands of reefs. A census expedition that went to the Celebes will help researchers address such broad questions as whether the deep basins mirror the richness of life found in the surrounding shallows. Photo by Larry Madin/WHOI

Calling a 10-year plan for ocean research a “Census of Marine Life” was from the beginning a splendid ambition, but perhaps a little loony. Scientists didn’t have names for, and may never have seen, thousands of marine critters. Nor had anyone sampled 99.9 percent of the ocean volume where the knowns and unknowns might dwell.

Yet something in seawater nourishes big schemes and dreams. In 2000, researchers began collaborating in a network that has now grown to involve at least 2,700 scientists from more than 80 nations. The coalition tackled “three grand questions,” in the words of Jesse Ausubel of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, an environmental scientist and cofounder of the census. The goal, as Ausubel put it, was to discover what has lived in the ocean, what lives there now and what will live there in the future.

To take on such a big task, census participants mined historical records, made more than 540 field expeditions, wrote upwards of 2,600 publications, discovered at least 1,200 new species (with more on the way), created a whale of a worldwide database for marine species records and spent $650 million.

New technologies bloomed. A novel approach to sonar gave a view wide enough to detect 250 million herring massing into a school the size of Manhattan. Tagging top predators revealed a previously unrecognized gathering point in the Pacific, dubbed the White Shark Café. And troubles loomed. Concerns over ocean resources encouraged research into the health of fishing stocks. In one dramatic report, scientists warned that unless something changes, fisheries could collapse by 2050.

Shipboard researchers collected specimens for basic taxonomy as well as for understanding patterns in past and future biodiversity. But the census portraits, a sampling of which are found on the following pages, are what really leads to oohing and ahhing over the seas’ spectacles.

A newly discovered crab boasts legs covered in pale, shaggy fur. Worms waggle more head ornaments than an Easter hat and the membranes of jellyfish flutter like moths. After 10 years, a new age of discovery has barely begun.

An oceanic endeavor: Census of Marine Life