breathe in now breathe in again
every second breath you take and comes
from the ocean no matter who you are or
where you live your life depends on the
ocean and the creatures that live there
from the tiniest organisms to the
biggest but for something so important
to our lives we know surprisingly little
about it in 2000 the census of marine
life embarked on a mission to change
that this 10 year effort used the latest
technologies as well as time-tested
techniques to explore and monitor life
in the sea it was a landmark
collaboration that involved more than
2,700 scientists 80 nations 600
institutions 500 expeditions and a
staggering 9000 days at sea Census
scientists recorded the locations of
tens of millions of individual marine
organisms some finds were thrilling in
the waters of Australia researchers
found a species of shrimp thought to
have gone extinct 50 million years ago
other discoveries however were not as
encouraging off the coast of northern
Europe Atlantic bluefin tuna were scarce
in waters where they once flourished in
many areas the census found species that
were completely new to science in all
researchers found more than six thousand
potentially new marine species and
formally described 1,200 of them and for
the first time scientists created a
digital address book of what lives in
the oceans made up of nearly 30 million
records this resource is available for
free to researchers and the public
worldwide thanks to this unprecedented
effort now there’s a baseline a snapshot
of what lives in the sea and where it
was found against which future change
can be measured we can see how
populations change over time what stays
the same and what’s at stake for our
oceans future and hopefully because of
the census of marine life we can all
breathe a little easier
every second breath you take and comes
from the ocean no matter who you are or
where you live your life depends on the
ocean and the creatures that live there
from the tiniest organisms to the
biggest but for something so important
to our lives we know surprisingly little
about it in 2000 the census of marine
life embarked on a mission to change
that this 10 year effort used the latest
technologies as well as time-tested
techniques to explore and monitor life
in the sea it was a landmark
collaboration that involved more than
2,700 scientists 80 nations 600
institutions 500 expeditions and a
staggering 9000 days at sea Census
scientists recorded the locations of
tens of millions of individual marine
organisms some finds were thrilling in
the waters of Australia researchers
found a species of shrimp thought to
have gone extinct 50 million years ago
other discoveries however were not as
encouraging off the coast of northern
Europe Atlantic bluefin tuna were scarce
in waters where they once flourished in
many areas the census found species that
were completely new to science in all
researchers found more than six thousand
potentially new marine species and
formally described 1,200 of them and for
the first time scientists created a
digital address book of what lives in
the oceans made up of nearly 30 million
records this resource is available for
free to researchers and the public
worldwide thanks to this unprecedented
effort now there’s a baseline a snapshot
of what lives in the sea and where it
was found against which future change
can be measured we can see how
populations change over time what stays
the same and what’s at stake for our
oceans future and hopefully because of
the census of marine life we can all
breathe a little easier
Please follow and like us: