New Species Among Marine Marvels Found in 2006

WASHINGTON, DC, December 11, 2006 (ENS) - Deep sea shrimp that can tolerate the hottest fluids ever discovered coming from a seafloor vent, a school of fish off the coast of New Jersey the size of the island of Manhattan, and many new species found far beneath Antarctic ice - these are just a few of the discoveries made in 2006 by scientists working with the global Census of Marine Life.

Some 2,000 researchers from 80 countries are engaged in a 10 year initiative to assess and explain the diversity, distribution and abundance of marine life in the world’s oceans past, present and future.

Census scientists mounted 19 ocean expeditions in 2006. The most intense field work is taking place in 2006 through 2008. The results will be analysed and synthesized in 2009 and 2010. The goal is to publish by 2010 an initial census describing what lived, now lives, and will live in the oceans.

Anemone crab with striped eye stalks collected during a Census expedition in the new Northestern Hawaiian Islands National Marine Sanctuary proclaimed in June. (Photo by A. Collins courtesy NOAA ©2006.)

This year the scientists inventoried nearshore biodiversity, where the number of active sampling sites grew exponentially from 30 to 128 this year.

Using satellites, they followed across thousands of kilometers of ocean more than 20 tagged species - from sharks and squid to sea lions, albatross and shearwaters.

"Each Census expedition reveals new marvels of the ocean and with the return of each vessel it is increasingly clear that many more discoveries await marine explorers for years to come," says Fred Grassle, chair of the Census Scientific Steering Committee.

Far offshore in the equatorial Atlantic three kilometers (two miles) below the surface, Census scientists found shrimp, mussels and clams among other life forms on the edges of fluids venting from the Earth’s core at an unprecedented marine recording of 407 degrees Celsius (765 degrees Fahrenheit).

Census researchers used a remotely operated vehicle to record the hottest marine temperature ever recorded. (Photo courtesy MARUM, University of Bremen ©2006)

In the Southern Ocean, census takers revealed a community of marine life beneath 700 meters of ice – 200 kilometers from open water. Sampling during three lengthy cruises yielded more new than familiar species.

Tracking tagged sooty shearwaters by satellite, Census researchers mapped the small bird’s 70,000 kilometer search for food in a giant figure eight over the Pacific Ocean, from New Zealand via Polynesia to foraging grounds in Japan, Alaska and California and then back.

Tracks of tagged sooty shearwaters as they made their way back and forth across the Pacific Ocean. (Photo courtesy TOPP ©2006.)

Near Easter Island, Census researchers discovered a crab so unusual it warranted a whole new family designation, Kiwaidae. The discovery also added a new genus, Kiwa, named for the mythological Polynesian goddess of shellfish. Its furry or hairy appearance inspired its species name, hirsuta.

Among the new species discovered is a unique squid that chews collected from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and named Promachoteuthis sloani.

Census zooplankton researchers discovered three new genera and 31 new species of copepods and mysids, small crustaceans, in Southeast Asian, Australian, and New Zealand waters.

The scientists say that overall, they anticipated being able to double the number of known zooplankton species after analyzing collections from biodiversity hotspots, the deep sea, and other unexplored regions.

Census microbe hunters found more than 20,000 kinds of bacteria in a single liter of sea water.

Reaching far back into the past, in such archives as taxes on salt to cure fish, Census historians reconstructed the changing abundance of marine life in 12 estuaries and coastal seas around the world.

In archives from Roman times in the Adriatic Sea, the medieval era in Northern Europe, to Colonial times in North America and Australia, they confirmed that exploitation and habitat destruction have depleted 90 percent of important fish species.

Dr. Fred Grassle, an expert in benthic ecology and ocean biogeography based at Rutgers University's Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, is chair of the Census Scientific Steering Committee. (Photo courtesy Rutgers)

They confirmed elimination of 65 percent of seagrass and wetland habitat, a 10 to 1,000 fold degradation of water quality, and accelerated species invasions.

They also found signs of transitions from degradation to recovery where conservation measures have been put in place during the 20th century.

Depletion has been documented, but new abundance has also been found. Among the many new species discovered by Census participants this year, are 1.8 kilogram (four pound) rock lobsters that Census explorers found off Madagascar are the largest. Named Palinurus barbarae, the main body of these lobsters spans half a meter (19 inches).

A pair of enormous rock lobsters found off the coast of Madagascar. (Photo by J. Groenevelt, Marine and Coastal Management, South Africa ©2006.)

Sound emitted by the new ship-based technology illuminates life in an oceanic area tens of thousands times larger than previously possible. It updates instantaneously and continuously, revealing the extension and shrinking, fragmentation and merging of masses of fish.

Analysts in the Census network have compiled the first global assessment of the extent, effectiveness, and omissions of coral reefs as Marine Protected Areas.

Contributing to and using the Census’ information system, they found that less than two percent of coral reefs worldwide are protected from extraction, poaching and other major threats. They built their worldwide database of protected areas for 102 countries, including satellite imagery of reefs.

The Census Ocean Biogeographic Information System now publishes over 140 global databases, producing an online library of more than 10 million distribution records - up from four million just two years ago - of over 78,000 species.

A complementary library of short DNA sequences – barcodes for quick identification of marine animals – grew past 4,000, including 2,000 fish. Holes in the Census database define clearly the unknown ocean.

A Jurassic shrimp, Neoglyphea neocaledonica, believed extinct for 50 million years, was found in the Coral Sea off the northeast coast of Australia. The sea forms part of the the Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef in the world. (Photo by Richer de Forges ©2006.)

The newest Census expedition is about to embark upon the first biological study of areas in the Antarctic newly exposed by atmospheric global warming.

On the Antarctic Peninsula and throughout Western Antarctica, glaciers are melting and the Larsen ice shelves are collapsing. As a result, areas which were previously covered by ice shelves several hundred meters thick are now accessible to researchers.

Scientists with the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research of Germany will shortly conduct the first major biological research in this newly uncovered area, studying living communities, from microbes to whales, including bottom fish and squids.

Explore the Census of Marine Life online at: http://www.comlsecretariat.org/