World beneath the ocean's surface remains largely unknown# Animals - 动物园
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World beneath the ocean's surface remains largely unknown: scientists
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/science/Marine+world+remains+largely+unknown+scientists/7559105/story.html
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/science/7557817.bin
VANCOUVER - The vast world that exists beneath the surface of the ocean
remains largely unknown to humankind, say experts working on an
international database of marine species.
Of an estimated one million species that make their home in the depths of
the sea, as many as two-thirds of them are still a mystery, says a study
published this week.
Canada has more coastline than any other nation on Earth — a staggering 200
,000 kilometres plus — and the nation's territorial waters cover more than
seven million square kilometres over three different oceans.
The country is a world leader in marine research but even here, the sea
still holds many surprises, says Gerhard Pohle, acting executive director of
the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in St. Andrews, N.B.
"There are an amazing amount of things, especially in the ocean, that we don
't know in terms of biodiversity," says Pohle, who spent a decade taking
part in an international Census of Marine Life, a decade-long project than
concluded in 2010.
It was only last year that scientists published research that estimated
there are approximately 10 million distinct species on Earth, Pohle said.
"It's staggering to think that as recently as 2011, we did not know how many
species there are in the world by order of magnitude. The estimates were
anywhere from three to 100 million species globally. That was it," Pohle
says.
"I'm somebody who works on this and when I saw it, I couldn't believe it."
The article published in the academic journal Current Biology this week
estimates there are one million marine species.
A World Register of Marine Species has catalogued 226,000 of them so far. As
many as 72,000 more specimens have been collected and are waiting to be
described.
"Knowing what lives in the ocean is fundamental to appreciate, care and
protect it," said Ward Appeltans, one of the authors and the project manager
of the Ocean Biogeographic Information System of UNESCO's Intergovernmental
Oceanographic Commission.
"Having a single catalogue of all known marine species is like an index in a
library. We can all start using the same species names, avoid confusion
over names and make less mistakes."
The register will provide an invaluable base line for ocean life.
"It is good though that there is increased interest in biodiversity," he
said. "We are now not only looking at the stars, but also what lives on our
planet. We can no longer neglect how much we depend on the ecosystem
services and how each species contributes to the functioning of our
biosphere."
In Canada, the world registry spurred the creation of the Canadian Registry
of Marine Species.
The online, open-access databases allows scientists to focus on collecting
and analyzing information, rather than cataloguing and maintaining disparate
databases, said Claude Nozeres, a Quebec biologist who has worked for
Fisheries and Oceans and contributed to both the Canadian and world
registers.
Canada is a major contributor to the international database, he said.
One example is a large sea pen that lives in the Gulf of St. Lawrence that
Nozeres said was forgotten for decades, until it was "rediscovered" in a
federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans museum collection. The species
has now been added to both databases.
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/science/Marine+world+remains+largely+unknown+scientists/7559105/story.html
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/science/7557817.bin
VANCOUVER - The vast world that exists beneath the surface of the ocean
remains largely unknown to humankind, say experts working on an
international database of marine species.
Of an estimated one million species that make their home in the depths of
the sea, as many as two-thirds of them are still a mystery, says a study
published this week.
Canada has more coastline than any other nation on Earth — a staggering 200
,000 kilometres plus — and the nation's territorial waters cover more than
seven million square kilometres over three different oceans.
The country is a world leader in marine research but even here, the sea
still holds many surprises, says Gerhard Pohle, acting executive director of
the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in St. Andrews, N.B.
"There are an amazing amount of things, especially in the ocean, that we don
't know in terms of biodiversity," says Pohle, who spent a decade taking
part in an international Census of Marine Life, a decade-long project than
concluded in 2010.
It was only last year that scientists published research that estimated
there are approximately 10 million distinct species on Earth, Pohle said.
"It's staggering to think that as recently as 2011, we did not know how many
species there are in the world by order of magnitude. The estimates were
anywhere from three to 100 million species globally. That was it," Pohle
says.
"I'm somebody who works on this and when I saw it, I couldn't believe it."
The article published in the academic journal Current Biology this week
estimates there are one million marine species.
A World Register of Marine Species has catalogued 226,000 of them so far. As
many as 72,000 more specimens have been collected and are waiting to be
described.
"Knowing what lives in the ocean is fundamental to appreciate, care and
protect it," said Ward Appeltans, one of the authors and the project manager
of the Ocean Biogeographic Information System of UNESCO's Intergovernmental
Oceanographic Commission.
"Having a single catalogue of all known marine species is like an index in a
library. We can all start using the same species names, avoid confusion
over names and make less mistakes."
The register will provide an invaluable base line for ocean life.
"It is good though that there is increased interest in biodiversity," he
said. "We are now not only looking at the stars, but also what lives on our
planet. We can no longer neglect how much we depend on the ecosystem
services and how each species contributes to the functioning of our
biosphere."
In Canada, the world registry spurred the creation of the Canadian Registry
of Marine Species.
The online, open-access databases allows scientists to focus on collecting
and analyzing information, rather than cataloguing and maintaining disparate
databases, said Claude Nozeres, a Quebec biologist who has worked for
Fisheries and Oceans and contributed to both the Canadian and world
registers.
Canada is a major contributor to the international database, he said.
One example is a large sea pen that lives in the Gulf of St. Lawrence that
Nozeres said was forgotten for decades, until it was "rediscovered" in a
federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans museum collection. The species
has now been added to both databases.
